Aftermath, Again
by Film and Junk
Summary: Mark and Roger loved each other, but something horrible happened. Now Mark loves Roger and Roger loves Mark, but with resentment, a sexy young stripper and a deadly virus against them, they begin to doubt their love will come again to fruition.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson. I'm just playing with his characters

All right, so my computer broke down and I couldn't do much for about a week... but now I'm back! This story was a speedrent entry; I'm extending it to post here. If you saw it on speedrent, please don't spoil the ending.

Also, I will be updating "That One Second" shortly. This is in the same 'verse, but a separate continuum-- that is, the events of this story are not canon to the other stories.

* * *

**Wednesday**

**morning**

I feel my body before my mind begins to think. Everything hurts, as though I've overexerted myself and not in a good way, either. My legs and shoulders especially ache. Everything is twisted and sore. Even my ass feels like someone tied the muscle into knots.

I remember a fairytale I learned as a child. I don't remember it well, but I remember that a man in the story, a close friend or brother of the chief character, had been bewitched by a sorceress who transformed him into a horse at night and rode him into a lather.

There was something in the solution about an enchanted bridle and likely a sleeping potion. That piece matters as a child reads the story; the child wants to know only what happens, but as an adult I am more concerned with the implication of his affliction.

Every night, the man is turned into a horse. Bridled and whipped and ridden. He is dehumanized, belittled, abused, in every way mistreated and stripped of his human dignity, and wakes unable to recall the evening.

Imagine not being in control of your own body.

This sensation jolts my heart as I awake. My body behaved without my consent. I was stripped of my most basic human dignity, my body used by another and for what, how, why?

Then my mind wakes. I'm sweating and panting, and the only power exerted over me by another is the gentle touch on my face, brushing away sweat.

A nightmare, it was only a nightmare.

"You okay?"

I open my mouth. It's dry. I hiss, swallow, my eyes still squeezed shut. "Glasses," I say.

"Here."

My glasses are pressed into my hand. I slip them onto my face and open my eyes. Roger is watching me, his mouth half-open, brow furrowed. In the dim half-light, he's the first thing I focus on. "Are you all right?" he asks.

He doesn't look half-bad, either. Concern suits him. Toplessness suits him, too. Briefly I wonder if Roger will ever grow hair on his chest.

"Yeah." I push myself into sitting position. My heart is still racing and my throat feels like one giant lump, but there's nothing to be frightened off. I'm not scared.

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

I shake my head and force up a smile. "Just a bad dream," I say. "Doesn't mater." I kiss his cheek quickly. The clock reads 6:40. I rub my eyes under my glasses. "Shit, it's early." Then, "Hey, what are you doing in bed? Aren't you going running?"

Roger shakes his head. "I thought I'd stay with you," he says.

"School, baby," I remind him. Roger nods. He's gotten himself there every morning since he moved in; he doesn't need my help. I give it anyway.

I don't know why I'm giving him reason to leave me alone, not with how nice it was to wake up to someone petting me and keeping me warm, but Roger raises himself out of bed.

"Try to get some sleep," he suggests, petting down my hair, then he drags himself out. I hear him stumbling around the loft, hear him talk to Collins, then the door slams shut. I go back to sleep.

The loft is empty when I shuffle out of bed at noon. The shower hisses and groans and spits down water in its accustomed harsh stream. I step under before the heat cuts out, letting the last vestiges of sleep wash away with the soapsuds.

Too much sleep, it's a sign of depression, the inertia cycle of depression.

I know I shouldn't make it a habit, but for one moment under the shower I blink and forget what day it is.

**TO BE CONTINUED!**

**Reviews would be more than awesome... please?**


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: RENT is Jonathan Larson's. I'm just playing with the characters.

**Wednesday**

**afternoon **

_Mark_

The projector is spinning one of my old films, my first, the only one I can watch without wincing at every tiny flaw. It's okay. It was my first. Any flaw, it's okay, I was learning, experimenting, just finishing the film is an accomplishment.

Today, the flaws don't bother me. I wince when I think I should. I've watched this one so many times, I know those moments in muscle memory, but I feel nothing. The images whir past, and they could last an hour or a second, I don't know.

I reset the reels and have the distinct feeling that I've done it before.

Somewhere in the middle of my half-hour high school production, the loft door slides open. I glance at the clock. It's 4:06; Collins has a class at 4:30 today. Roger has soccer. He won't be home until five or six.

I step out of the bedroom. "Collins—"

I stop. Standing in the middle of the room, clutching a ratty black backpack, stands Roger. He shakes his head.

"Hey." I hurry over. "What's going on? Are you sick?" I shake up my sleeve and press my wrist to his forehead. He isn't running a fever.

Roger says, "I thought I'd come home early to be with you," and my stomach clenches hungrily. Strange time for hunger. His grin looks painted by an amateur dilettante. "So, do you want to play doctor or not?"

He doesn't sound interested, particularly. I'm surprised to find that neither am I.

**evening **

When the lights are shut off and we're lying in bed together, it feels strange that my mind does not think to think of sex. I think of the hours spent fucking and sucking and licking and… well, everything, and the prospect is no longer appealing to me, at least not now.

A few weeks ago, lying here in my underwear with Roger's body tangled with mine, his skin on my skin, I would be randier than a baboon. Tonight I only feel comfortable and tired.

Roger, too.

"Mark?" he mumbles.

"Hm?"

"Why'd you quit?" he asks.

I stiffen momentarily, then ease my body and say, "I just wasn't happy." I wasn't happy, so I left a job I hated. Then I called my mother.

_In the phone booth, I bounced my knees as the telephone in Scarsdale rang for a third time. "C'mon… pick up, pick up, pick up," I urged quietly, then bit my lip. _

_No, Mom, don't pick up. Don't. Don't be there, don't let me ask you this, don't ask me about my films! Don't—pick up, Mom… _

_Oh, fuck. Don't pick up, Dad! _

_"Hello?" _

_I sighed in relief at my mother's voice, then my belly clenched and I remembered why I was calling. "Hey, Mom. It's Mark," I told her, smiling to beat the resignation from my tone. _

_"Mark!" I could practically see her beaming. "How are you, honey? How's your film?" _

_"Um, great, Mom." I almost wished my mom would not try to take an interest. I wished I could hate her for not giving a shit or for nagging me to come home or finish college, but Mom didn't do those things. Mom just asked how my film is, singular though I've made several crappy little reels of clumsy splicing. _

_"Good. Things here are good. Sarah declared her major, oh, and Cindy thinks Ruth might be able to read before she reaches kindergarten." _

_I tried to feel happy for my sister finally settling on a major. Sarah always was the impulsive one—at an age at which I was still on the floor, playing blocks and shitting my diapers and crawling, Sarah was pulling herself along the edge of the table. When I wore water wings, Sarah jumped into the deep end and almost drowned. So it came as a surprise that Sarah, nearly three years through college, had yet to officially declare her major. _

_I tried to feel happy for my niece, mastering her letters, but all I could think of was how I struggled with elementary skills, how simple numbers and letters confused me for the longest time. Admittedly I developed such strong study skills at an early age I had no difficulty with higher level classes. Still, the memory of frustration and struggling in kindergarten and first grade left me with a humiliating jealousy of a four-year-old. _

_"That's great, Ma," is all I said. _

_Mom sighed. "How much?" she asked. _

_"What?" _

_"How much money, sweetheart?" _

_My gut twisted. I closed my eyes, and told her._

I wake in the night as the bed shifts, thinking it can't have been long since I fell asleep, and perhaps it's Roger's absence that woke me. Then the sink in the bathroom runs, wailing pipe noises through the walls. Roger just needed the toilet.

I roll over and drift back to sleep.

_Roger _

The cap clicks, and turns. White plastic slips under my hands, rubbing harsh against my fingers.

"Ah!"

Hurts.

I push down and twist, and nothing happens. The metal of the faucet is so cold it hurts to touch; I wince, withdraw, then twist on the water. The groans fill the loft.

"Fuck!"

_Sleep,_ I think to Mark and Collins. It's my only coherent thought. The rest is panic as I hold the bottle under the stream and push down the cap and twist.

NyQuil goes down like a slug in my throat and a bang to the gut. I'm exhausted and not ready for it, and it leaves me gasping, clutching the sink. This is more than tiredness, I know, this is exhaustion, this is two days since I slept and nightmares. My head spins.

"Uhh…"

I feel the moan in my throat more than I hear it. My head is rolling, or the ground is twisting.

With one hand on the wall, I stumble across the loft. It's cold, and my feet don't know what to do. In the bedroom I lift the blankets and slip underneath.

Mark is already asleep, his back to the wall. I press up against him, shuddering, and cuddle up to his chest. Mark murmurs in his sleep and threads an arm around me. I close my eyes and listen to Mark's breath passing over my head.

**TO BE CONTINUED**

**Please review? C'mon... you know you want to...**


	3. Chapter 3

As to where this fits in in the timeline, IT DOESN'T. This is an AU to our AU. "The First Time", "That One Second", and everything after, are in a different continuum.

Disclaimer: They're Jonathan Larson's. I'm just playing with the characters is all...

**Thursday**

**morning**

_Roger_

something warm

something very quickly cold

a feel and a smell I know, something my memory has stored so many times a bit each day

a memory established before memory was established

"Roger, wake up."

Mark shakes me, pulling my consciousness from the verge of a deep plunge into memory. I immediately recognize the smell, and sleep disappears.

"Oh, yuck."

I sit up. The blankets have been pushed back; Mark, being aware, has scooted back from the massive puddle in the middle of the mattress, leaving me to lie slightly off-center of it. "Yuck." I move away, but my legs and my underwear are sticky with it.

"You wet my bed," Mark says blearily.

"I didn't."

I definitely did not. I control my bladder just fine and have since I was… all right, since I was ten. Still after my father died and my mother uprooted us to a city with a soda shoppe on Main Street, I think a few nighttime episodes can be forgiven.

Anyway the only thing I wet Mark's bed with was cum.

Once.

And it could've been worse, it could've been Collins' bed, though I imagine in his bed I would have worn pants.

Mark frowns at me.

"Whatever," he says, too tired to be bothered. "It doesn't matter, look, just get a bag from the kitchen and start stripping the sheets. Then I'll finish up while you wash." He climbs over me and walks out of the room.

The shower is spitting by the time I retrieve the bag. I strip the sheet off the bed and the cover off the quilt, the one thing in the room I could ever call mine. Each time my hands come into contact with a damp spot I shiver.

After, I lay the quilt on the floor and touch every inch of it. It is blissfully dry.

By the time Mark returns from the bathroom, a towel cinched up around his waist and his soiled shorts held out between two fingers, I'm shivering. My wet underpants hurt against my skin, cold and rough, making my balls hurt.

I'm all too glad to dash into the bathroom. I don't shower, since the hot water is gone, just soap my legs and groin and splash off with water from the bathtub.

That's when my mind wakes up.

That's when I realize that Mark's bed was just pissed in.

That's when I realize that Mark thinks I pissed in his bed. My cheeks burn so powerfully the bones beneath ache. I didn't. I couldn't've.

Does that matter? Mark thinks I did.

It's strange that I don't think he did it. I don't think I did it but I don't think he did it. Neither of us pissed, no, but the piss is there. It's as though it climbed up through the mattress to settle around us.

an attack.

from who?

_Mark_

The clock informs me as I awake that it is fifteen minutes past one o'clock in the afternoon. I go through the rituals—I shower and dress.

I watch the water boil in a shallow pot, tiny bubbles appearing on the bottom and sides of the pot, then creep slowly up and disappear. It's the only time I wish I had scored better marks in Chemistry.

I sit at the table with my tea, weakened by the fact that this is my second re-use of the teabag. A newspaper is left open on the table; I pull it close and read.

"Shit."

It's not a newspaper. It's the fucking wanted ads, and trust Collins to have circled every third fucking ad in red. He's provided me information about being a clerk, a bellhop, even a secretary… nothing reputable, nothing enjoyable, nothing to write home about.

Here's one for a job in a garage. That might be interesting. I could learn about cars, mechanics, I know a bit about that from tinkering with my camera. That can't be too different from an engine, on a basic level. And I'll have something to talk to my dad about at Chanukah.

Who am I kidding? I'm neither going home for Chanukah nor to work in a garage.

Maybe to the bedroom to wank off. But there's no job for me, not in this paper at least.

TO BE CONTINUED!

Please review? Please?


	4. PointFive Alpha

Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson. I'm just playing with his characters. The views expressed in this chapter are those of the characters and do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of the author.

**Thursday**

**evening**

"What's your stance on the death penalty?" I ask, even though I'd approximate it's point-oh-five alpha he's against.

Collins takes a long look at me. I hope he thinks I'm looking back while I watch the colors dance off the green glass of his beer bottle. He drinks, walks over and sits down at the table opposite me. The entire time, he watches me.

"Why?" he asks.

I shrug. My pen taps against the page, blemishing the sheet with a dark blue mark. "Just an assignment," I say.

"An assignment to ask or an assignment about your own opinions?" Collins asks.

My nose spasms. "I'm supposed to write about the opposition to the death penalty," I explain. It's so damn cold tonight. My feet dance.

Collins drinks. "You don't need me for that," he says. Point-five alpha.

"Pretend," I say. Rain splashes against the window, casting patterns on the page. I watch the shadows of shadows slighter away, over the blue mark. I rub at it with my thumb; the pad of my thumb is blue. The mark has spread.

"Roger—"

"No, I want to know. Come on. Please. Just two minutes, why are you against the death penalty?"

Collins gives me a _look_, as though he's said something horribly obvious and I've missed the point entirely. I give him a hard look right back, and he laughs and says, "Okay, Roger. I'm against the death penalty because there can be mistaken conviction, and you can't undo the death penalty. And because I'm an anarchist."

A smile forces itself onto my face. "That's your excuse for everything," I say. "Anarchy is like your religion."

"I can see the parallels," he admits. "So how 'bout you, why are you against the death penalty?"

I squirm. Point-oh-five alpha. I was sure and I was right, so it's certainty. Collins is sure. It's assumption.

"I'm not."

Collins raises his eyebrows. I don't think I've ever seen his eyes widen. Mark's eyes widen. "No?" he asks.

"No," I repeat firmly.

"Why not?" Collins asks. "An eye for an eye?"

I shake my head. "I don't see how taking another life rights the wrong of taking a life in the first place," I say. "It's not that." I press my thumb against my page, over the blue smudge, but smears of ink slip out around my squashed skin.

When I don't continue, Collins asks, "Then why?"

"Because." My head is bowed. I don't want to look completely away from the smear. It'll grow. I roll my eyes to look at Collins as I say, "Because some people don't deserve to live."

He's silent for a good long time. He watches me. He doesn't look disgusted. He doesn't look angry or disappointed. He looks curious, watching me, not prompting me to continue, not responding.

Then he says, "Murderers."

I disagree. "There are worse crimes than murder," I say. Point-oh-five alpha. Point oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-one alpha. "A murder victim—" That fucking smear! I rip the page out of my notebook. "A murder victim doesn't have to keep living."

Collins touches my hand. He opens his mouth and is about to speak when the door slides open and Mark walks in, pulling his sweater off. It's cold inside and out, but the sweater is soaked.

I pull my hand back.

"Hey," Mark says. He looks at me and Collins, who _now_ looks like he's… well, not angry. Anger is heat. It's passion. Collins' expression is too cool to be anger. It's disappointment, maybe; whatever it is, Mark sees it, too. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," I say. "Just homework."

**night**

_Mark_

Rain pours, and I lie awake, unable to sleep. My shoulders are cold, protruding out from the covers, and my ears and nose, all the small pieces of my head, but the rest of me is warm.

I wonder what life would be like entirely without sleep. Imagine something so terrible, a vision of hell before every closed eye, folks dropping down on the pavement, behind the steering wheel, too tired to keep themselves going.

In the darkness I lie awake, perfectly still, listening to the rain and the wind and the sounds of the city. Somehow someone is always shouting, somewhere in the jungle. A siren is always half a second from being switched on.

Roger mutters something. He shifts onto his side. He's awake.

I inch closer to him. Roger is warm. I can hear him breathing as I press up against him.

A part of me thinks I shouldn't do this. A part of me thinks that it's a school night, and it's late. Having a bit of fun at six is one thing, but it's after ten o'clock now and though I can sleep in, Roger has to get up at whatever ungodly hour he rises at to run.

I suppress that part of me. My hand pushes Roger's T-shirt up enough to slide across his abdomen. The feel of his muscles triggers the memory of the sight, and I'm getting hot already.

Roger doesn't respond as my hand moves downward, but when I have my fingers inside his underwear and sort of rubbing, I feel the response I want, both from him and from me. Roger's gone rigid; I can feel his muscles tensed against me.

Just when he's on the brink of having an erection he says, "Mark."

Roger sounds like he's crying. "Mark, please stop."

I withdraw. "Okay, Roger." My voice may be just a touch cold.

He doesn't have to beg! Does he think I would force him? I _wouldn't_. I like sex. I probably like it more than he does, in fact, but does he have to ask me that as though there's a chance I'd say no?

"If you're not in the mood, you're not in the mood."

I roll over. We don't know each other at all, do we? We don't if he thinks I would ever even consider doing anything like that.

"Mark?" Roger wriggles up against me. I pull towards the wall. I don't want him near me right now. Christ! He thinks I'd fuck him when he didn't want it! How can he think that?

"Mark." Roger presses near me again.

I take a deep breath. It's okay. Roger just likes having someone near. I can deal with that. But when he touches my arm, I push him away. "Just stop it, Roger."

The mattress whines, the blankets shift, and Roger stumbles to the bathroom.

TO BE CONTINUED!

"Point-five alpha" is a Statistics term, meaning 99.5 per cent confidence.

Maybe Roger isn't general considered to be that dorky. Bear with me on this one. I'm the nerd who can recite Pascal's Triangle and Wager off the top of my head. ("...one-three-three-one-one-four-six-four-one...")

Please review?


	5. Friday

Disclaimer: RENT is Jonathan Larson's, I'm just playing with the characters

**Friday**

**morning**

_Roger_

It's during homeroom that the announcement comes over the loudspeaker:

…AND GOOD LUCK TO OUR SOCCER TEAM IN THEIR GAME TONIGHT. GO TIGERS!…

I don't make it to third period.

I hide out behind one of the buildings, sink down into a crouch with my fingers in the trashed dirt. Some kids are smoking weed a few yards away. They don't even look at me as I gasp and rock.

I feel my dick moving with the rhythm and wonder if maybe I did piss Mark's bed.

My face is burning as my fingers rake through the dirt and pebbles. A bottlecap brushes up against my knuckles, dark blue plastic stuck in the dirt, its edges jagged. I pry it up.

A dark blue bottlecap, it doesn't even look unclean. I scratch my arm with it.

It feels cleansing.

_Mark_

I wash the floor.

I love the look as water slithers down the walls where I've slashed the sponge across. I scrub, for what good it does: not much. The sponge is old and falling apart. It's something we never think about, buying sponges. We would rather have the extra cans of soup.

Water leaps from the sponge, and I more throw it onto the walls than anything else. Dust slips to the ground, piling on the floor. I use a bath towel on the floor, since the alternative is letting the water sit.

It looks like rain. I check that the plastic sheet keeping us dry is tightly hung, in case of deluge.

**afternoon**

Roger stirs the macaroni around in the pan.

"Okay," he says. He finds two fairly clean plates and the chipped plastic Disney bowl and portions out dinner. "Mac and cheese." Roger scratches his arm through his sweater, then pulls away like a six-year-old with his hand caught in the cookie jar.

"You okay, baby?" Mark asks. Roger slips a plate into his hands and settles beside him on the couch. "You've been a little funny lately."

"Fine."

Collins says, "Whereas Mark cleaning the loft…"

"Happens every day!" Roger concludes

"I'm very industrious," Mark says with a mocking pride. "I also sorted all the food to follow the Kosher Laws."

"You're joking."

"No," Mark says, as though he could not possibly be joking. It's shortly after Collins adopts a shocked an expression that Mark begins to laugh. Then Collins laughs, and it's so contagious that Roger begins to chuckle, as well.

They're interrupted by a knock on the door.

"I'll get it." Mark sets down his plate. He gives Roger's knee a quick squeeze. "Eat, baby," he says before hopping up and heading for the door. "Who the hell could it be?" he wonders aloud.

It is, in fact, two people, middle-aged men Mark has never seen before. "Hello," he says, perplexed. "Can I help you?"

"We're looking for Roger Davis," says one. He displays a badge to Mark. "We're with the police. Is he here?"

Mark glances behind him. Roger? What the hell could they want with Roger? Roger isn't a criminal, he's never done anything illegal, at least that Mark knows of. "Why?" he asks. "Yeah, Roger…"

Roger leaps up, nearly sending his macaroni and cheese crashing to the floor but steadying it just in time. "I know," he says. "I know what this is about. Just let me go with them, okay, right?" he asks the cops. "If I go with you now and answer your questions it stays between us?"

The man looking a bit younger and wearing a silly moustache nods. "Yes," he says. "You understand, Mr. Davis, that you aren't in any trouble."

Roger nods. He brushes Mark's hand. "I'll be back soon," he promises.

**night**

When Roger returns, Mark and Collins are still sitting around. The macaroni and cheese is gone, replaced by a half-attended game of Scrabble, Mark's Chanukah gift from his mother last year when he would have given anything to have a warm coat.

"Roger!"

Mark rushes to his side. Question bubble up inside him thick as jam, and though he knows from Roger's haggard expression that now is not the time, Mark asks, "Roger, what—what happened to your arm? And what did the police want with you?"

Roger glances down at his arm. He has removed his sweater, and angry red marks show where he scraped and scraped earlier with the old bottle cap, shearing away used flesh.

He ignores that question.

"It was just about something at school," he murmurs. "If you don't mind, I'm really tired—"

"Don't mind?" Mark interrupts. He can't decide if he's hurt or angry or concerned, but whatever he is, he feels it so strongly the emotion could burst physically through his chest at this point. "Roger, the police took you for questioning—"

Roger shakes his head. "It was just this thing at school," he says.

"Roger." Collins weighs in, having had enough. "We have a right to know." He notices Roger's hand rove towards his arm to scratch at the scabs there. "The cops came to our home."

Roger sighs. A piece of congealed blood flakes off. "Look," he says. Roger glances at the clock. "These kids brought a knife to school." It's 9:13, and he wants to go to bed. "No one got hurt, but they're in a lot of trouble." His eyelids feel swollen.

Mark frowns.

"I'm going to bed," Roger says, "okay? I'm really tired."

TO BE CONTINUED!

Please review? _Please?_


	6. Terror and Masochism

Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson. I'm just playing with the characters.

**Monday**

**Morning**

_Collins_

At seven o'clock, I have yet to see Roger: this is strange. Usually, Roger's juggling the acts of drinking coffee, finishing his homework, buttoning his shirt and swearing copiously at seven o'clock. This morning, he's nowhere to be found, and I know he's not out running because his shoes are by the door, one next to the other like they're waiting for him.

"Roger!"

He's going to school. I don't care if he wants to or not, he's going every damn day until he graduates—that was a condition on his moving in.

Both he and Mark are perplexed as to why I should care. Both he and Mark look at me and wonder why an _anarchist_ should care so much about laws.

I don't. It's not the laws. It's about Roger. He's bright, but he's socially awkward. He would've moved in with Mark, dropped out of school, and probably never gone back, because he's not happy at school. But he's happy learning, even if he doesn't know it, any fool can see it on his face when he sits for five minutes with a book.

Four months, Roger graduates, he doesn't ever have to step foot on a campus again.

"Roger!"

Until then, he needs to get his ass out of bed because if he doesn't go to school, he's not staying here.

I give the letter another glance. I don't know why I do it. I don't know why I keep it. I'm not going. Still it's not everyone who has a letter from the University of California at Berkeley admitting them as a potential professor.

Cal's got a good location.

What am I talking about? Winter without snow is not winter.

I knock on the door to Mark's bedroom. "Rog—"

Mark answers. "He isn't going. Col, he's staying home today."

_Right._ I can just imagine what Mark thinks he and Roger will do today. "Mark—" I push open the door and step in, and I stop speaking.

Roger is huddled on the bed, clinging to Mark. He's shaking. Mark has one hand on Roger's back and the other is stroking his hair. Roger looks to be about thirteen years old now; trembling in an old T-shirt and underwear, he looks like someone's cast-off.

"What's going on?" I ask Mark.

He shakes his head. "He just woke up like this. Shh." The last is directed at Roger, who scoots closer to Mark. Mark pushes his fingers through Roger's hair. "Shh, it's okay, Roger."

"Hey." I glance for Mark's permission, then sit on the bed. "Roger." I touch Roger's back. He keeps shaking. I've seen him depressed before. I've probably seen Roger more terrified than Mark has. I remember during one of their worst fights, when Roger was crashing on my floor.

"_Collins."_

_Roger was shaking me and saying my name; I pushed him away and rubbed my eyes. "Wha…" I blinked. What the hell was Roger thinking, waking me up in the middle of the night? "The loft better be on fire…"_

"_Can I…"_

_He paused to bite his lip. "Yes," I murmured. "Whatever it is, yes, fine, I don't care, you don't need my permission, lemme sleep—"_

"_Can I sleep in your bed?"_

_What!_

_I sat up and actually tried to focus on Roger. "What?"_

"_Can I sleep in your bed?" he repeated._

_My first thought was, Roger's joking. But Roger wasn't joking. Roger was completely serious, standing there in the darkness with his eyes so wide I could practically see them despite the lack of light, and he was asking, quite honestly._

"_Yeah." Was that my voice! Apparently it was, because Roger had uttered his thanks and crawled under the blankets._

That night, he was scared, but nothing like this. "Roger," I say again.

Mark shakes his head. "It's okay," he says, though I can't see how. "We'll be okay."

"You sure?" I ask. Mark nods. "Roger?"

"'be fine," he whispers. He's terrified. I look at Mark and see that he's terrified, too.

I won't pretend I'm not. I rub Roger's back gently. He sort of cringes, but that might be the quivering. "I can stay…" Or I can go to work and worry about Roger all day. Something is _wrong_. I need not ask. Something is very, very wrong.

"Please." Roger detaches himself from Mark; the trembling grows worse, but he looks from me to Mark and swipes at dry eyes. "You should go," he says. "It's important, what you do, teaching, it's…"

I nod. "Okay. Take care of yourselves," I say, and I wonder if they have the capacity.

Mark and Roger are not adults. Mark and Roger are stunted children. I reread the letter on the subway and shake my head. It's masochism to even remember it.

_Mark_

After the door slams shut, Roger sits, staring. His hands rest in his lap. His head hangs limp. He just stares.

"Roger?" I touch his shoulder. "Baby?" I don't want to touch him. I'm scared of why Roger's like this, I'm scared for Roger, but even worse is that I'm scared _of_ Roger. He's never been like this. "Roger, talk to me," I say, not sure I want to know.

When I woke up this morning, Roger was clinging to me. He had his face pressed against my chest and was shaking his head, whimpering that he couldn't go to school today, begging me.

He shakes his head.

"Okay." I'd say that no matter what, at the moment. Whatever Roger wants to do right now, that's what we'll do. "That's okay, baby, you don't have to talk," I add, for emphasis. "You want to get some breakfast, or um… we can just stay here," I add.

Roger apparently likes this idea. He lays down and curls up on his side. I lay with him and pet him, and he seems to calm down. After a while, Roger's shaking has almost stilled and his breathing has deepened, and I realize that he has fallen asleep.

TO BE CONTINUED!

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WARNING: Next chapter has some "intense thematic material"


	7. And Answers

Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson. The Beatles belong to themsleves, and "And Your Bird Can Sing" belongs to them. Scrabble belongs to.. I dunno, not me.

**Monday**

**afternoon**

_Mark_

When I murmur and sigh and pass from sleep to waking, Roger is still beside me, his breath gentle on my chest, the heat of his body cradling me with more strength than blankets ever could. I smile. Even at the weekends, Roger usually wakes early to go running, so he's been burning oil for hours before I stumble out of bed.

Today he's here, lying beside me, and I feel exceptionally happy.

Then it hits me. I remember Roger's arms wrapped too tightly, clinging to me; how his whole body trembled. I remember those pathetic, kittenish whimpers begging me not to make him go. I stop smiling and pet his hair.

"What is it, baby?" I ask, but not loudly enough to wake him.

I remain beneath the covers, feeling the rise and fall of Roger's chest. For a while I rest my hand there and just feel, know, how alive he is. But all the while, as I do this, my heart races with a slow fear. What if my hand is too heavy? What if the pressure I apply is too much? What if, in trying to love him, I stop his heart?

Roger's left some of his schoolbooks on the floor by the bed. Usually he sleeps nearer the door, since he slips away in the morning without waking me. Today he is cuddled between me and the wall. I lean down and pick up one of his books.

_Brave New World_, by Aldous Huxley. I remember reading this in college. I remember feeling for it, believing in it, but I don't remember what it said. I glance at Roger: still asleep. I flick on the light, and he doesn't wake, but he's hit just right by the lamplight, and it makes him glow.

I pet him. He's too beautiful not to touch. Roger murmurs and shifts, then settles against me.

_Brave New World_ captivated me when I first read it, and now I find myself drawn deeper and deeper into it, fascinated, terrified as I read of infants being shocked when they reach for books and flowers.

"Mark," Roger whimpers.

I glance down. He's still asleep, but writhing slightly; I'm holding him too tight. I ease up, and force myself to breathe as I read on.

"Mark?"

He's awake this time. I squirm down to kiss his lips. "Morning."

Disoriented, Roger asks, "Is… is it Sunday?"

I shake my head. "Monday, baby. Don't you remember?"

"I—oh." Roger remembers. "I'm sorry," he says. He blinks, staring up at me, and I wonder if Roger means to be so flirtatious. He never has been a bold flirt before, and now seems an odd time to start—odd, but perfect, I think, feeling movement in my pants.

I push my fingers through Roger's hair. It's clean and feathery, and I almost feel bad knowing that he only washed it because I recoiled to discover how greasy he had become the previous evening. Even so, even guilty at my disgust, I have to stifle a moan when I touch Roger.

"It's okay," I tell him. "You had us worried."

Roger repeats, "I'm sorry." He adds, "I just… I'm sorry. I didn't mean to worry you. It's nothing," he adds.

I nod. "If you're sure," I say. He promises that he is. I kiss him. "Then let's get up and see what we've got for breakfast."

"Lunch," Roger corrects, and his stomach growls. He is right: it's well past noon.

Around two, I ask Roger, "Aren't you going running today?"

He looks at me, cocks his head, and says, "I quit the team."

"Why?" I ask. "You love soccer." Roger only shakes his head; I give a sympathetic smile. I've been in his shoes. I only hug him and give his ass an affectionate squeeze. "We'll find something to do with that excess energy," I promise.

**evening**

_Collins_

I climb the stairs to the loft, and fumbling with my keys causes me to pause just outside the door. The radio is playing—I think it's a radio. Yes, it is, since that isn't Mark or Roger singing. It's an oldies station, blaring "And Your Bird Can Sing" by the Beatles.

I shiver, not because of the song—although, admittedly, before Roger I never was crazy about the Beatles. But he has a way of making you appreciate things. Roger played me the songs and made me realize I had never liked the Beatles because I had never bothered listening to them.

"They're just a pop group," I told him.

Roger grinned lopsided. "Sure," he said, "they're a pop group. But outside of catch rhythms and toe-tapping, they really had something to say."

Tonight, I can hear the Beatles in the hallway. They're not exactly avant-garde and neither, I suppose, is Roger.

He has the potential to be, but isn't.

All day long I've wondered, what's going on? What's got Roger so broken and needy? It's my late day as is, and a compulsory department meeting helped matters nothing. Already it's late as I unlock the door.

Roger and Mark are sitting on the couch, side by side, with the Scrabble board out on what passes for a table. Mark watches Roger. He has a hand on Roger's thigh and it's obvious what he wants.

Roger watches the board, his forehead furrowed in an attempt to maintain focus.

"Hey," I say.

Mark and Roger look up; Roger grins. "Collins!"

Nothing compares to _that_ welcome after a bad day. Roger, I decide as I return his hug, is the next best thing to having a boyfriend. I can't look at him as a boyfriend, not only because I have no sexual feelings for him but because I teach kids his age. Roger's just a baby. What he does is his own business, but I just couldn't feel right doing it with him.

"Hey, Roger. Glad to see you're feeling better," I tell him.

"Yeah," he says, nodding vigorously. He returns to the couch to sit with Mark; I take a chair. "Um, do you want to play? We're not keeping score or anything."

I glance at the board. Idea-mark-imp-parking-game-sodomy. "No, thanks. You're okay now?" I ask.

Roger nods.

"Then you'll be fine for school tomorrow," I say. His body visibly stiffens. His brow furrows and his eyes squint almost shut. His hands clench into fists. _Nice, Roger._ He hasn't addressed the problem at all. "You're going to school unless you give me a reason why you shouldn't," I remind him.

Mark sighs. He looks at me, exasperated, and says, "Come on, Col, you're not his dad. Roger doesn't have to go."

"No," I tell Mark, "as far as I'm concerned, I'm his landlord." Mark's, too. This is a great advantage to being the name on the lease. "Roger, I can't make you go to school, but I can tell you that if you don't—"

This affects Roger dramatically. His eyes close, and his knees dance as though he has a desperate need for the bathroom, but he doesn't move off the couch. He lowers his head and measures every breath.

It's a tribute to just how completely fucking pissed I am that my first thought is, _Drama queen._

"Hey, why don't you lay off?" Mark interrupts me. "Look, high school… it's a miserable time, and we already know he isn't going to college—"

"I don't believe that," I tell Mark, and I'm so obviously angry that his mouth snaps shut. "I don't believe that, and neither should you. You know, you went to college, you had that experience. Maybe Roger doesn't get it _now_, but I think he deserves to have every option open to him, even if that's just getting a halfway decent job, which means he gets his diploma. Which," I tell Roger, "means that I don't care if I have to treat you like a two-year-old. Either you go to school or you move out."

Mark squeezes Roger's hand. He nods. "Okay," he says.

"All right, then."

"Just—" Roger says. I pause and look at him. "Just…" Roger glances at Mark, then bites his lip and lowers his head. "Please don't argue," he says. "It's still my life, you know."

_Yeah, and you're doing a real bang-up job with it._

What? Being a professor doesn't mean I no longer have snarky, sarcastic and thoroughly uncharitable thoughts. "Roger, I want a word with you."

He clutches Mark's hand.

"Yeah, come on, it'll just take two minutes then you two can get your groove on, or whatever you kids are calling it these days." Actually, I'm only a few years older than Mark, but the joke pulls attention away from my irritation and Roger steps out of the loft with me.

"What's up?" he asks.

I give him a stern look. It's nothing I ever imagined myself being good at, giving stern looks, but apparently I am quite skilled in this field. "I want to know why you skipped school today," I say.

Roger half-shrugs. "It was just… it's hard," he says. He looks at the floor. His cheeks are flushed.

"Roger." Don't disappoint me. "Does it have to do with those kids who brought a knife on campus?" I ask. It's my best guess, but Roger shakes his head.

He tells me, "I… I went back today… to the police station. For a little while."

"So it was about the knife," I conclude.

Roger shakes his head. He backs up until he's standing against the wall, shaking his head, staring at the floor. "I lied." Roger's voice sounds like a sob. "I'm sorry," he sob-says. "I lied to you. There was no knife. I'm sorry."

"Then what?"

This kid is getting on my nerves. I thought I liked him. I thought he was honest, compassionate, broken but pure of heart. Turns out he's a bit of a schmuck.

Roger shakes his head. He sobs dryly. "I didn't mean it," he says. "It… it was just… it was the guys on the team."

Okay. This, at least, makes sense, and I believe Roger. He had every reason to cover for them: they're his teammates, his clan. Loyalty kept his mouth shut. I feel a bit better about him. He acted foolishly, but not in any exceptional manner, given his age.

"They got out of control," he says. "After practice one day a couple of weeks ago. They just got out of control that's _all_." The word sounds like a stomp of his foot. It sounds final.

Or it would, if his voice didn't break.

"Did you do it?" I ask. "Are you accused of a crime?" I need to know. If he's living here, I need to know what's going on.

Roger shakes his head. "No." The word bubbles out of him. "No," he says, "no, I didn't… I told them to stop," he says. "I _told _them."

"Okay, Roger, I believe you." I'm not sure if I do, but he needs me to, so I say it. "So you just witnessed this, you weren't involved?" I ask. That makes more sense. That makes more sense with who my Roger is.

My heart sinks when he shakes his head. "What?" I ask. Roger says nothing. I fold my arms. "Tell me," I suggest. "Roger, you give me a damn good reason why you ditched today, why you don't want to go in tomorrow, or I'll never be able to trust you again. Is that what you want?"

He shakes his head. I hate how I sound. I hate playing the role of a parent when I want to be a friend. Maybe sometimes that's what friendship is, is taking care of a person when he can't take care of himself, as much as Roger helps me enter grades into the gradebook and score tests.

"Tell me."

I give pause enough that he could speak if he so wished. When Roger is silent, I turn and head back to the loft without another word, ready to leave him to this.

"Collins?" he asks me, very timidly, just as I'm about to open the door. I turn. Roger's looking up; his eyes are raw, his face is red and streaked with tears. This kid isn't being petulant. He's in hell. "I asked them to stop," he whimpers, then his eyes screw shut and he shakes, crying.

"What is it?" I ask.

Roger's shoulders convulse with every sob. "I asked," he whimpers. "'_Stop_. Leave me _alone_.'"

"Roger…" I don't want to jump to conclusions. I don't want to make false assumptions. I certainly don't want to put ideas in Roger's head, as frightened as he already is, but there's a sick feeling in my gut and I'm afraid of what he may confirm. "Did they… hurt you?" I ask.

He nods, which makes him cry harder. "Please don't tell Mark," he says.

"I won't," I promise, not meaning it. "But maybe it would help you if you could tell me what happened."

I don't want to know. I honestly, horribly, selfishly, wish I had never noticed anything wrong with Roger. But I did, and now I need to know everything. Even if I can do nothing, I want to know everything—or at least, to know enough.

"They… after practice," Roger stammers. "These guys were… they're on the team, they… we've had, they don't like me, they had this petition, they want to kick me off… out of the locker room, they said I look at them, I didn't, don't, never… I asked them to stop." He presses his hands against his face.

"Fuck!" Roger shouts suddenly. He smacks himself across the face, and the sound echoes.

"Roger!" I grab his hand.

He rolls his eyes to look at me, and something in his expression reminds me of a terrified horse, how violent horses become, how they run and run as though to escape the things they fear.

"Tell me what happened," I urge, if only to give him direction and give myself the safety of knowledge.

"They… they m—they f—r—they made me—I—they," he stammers helplessly.

I lose my patience. Fuck putting ideas in his head. "Roger," I say, "are you trying to tell me that they raped you?"

"Uh…" Roger looks at me, swallows, and he tries to speak. He can't.

"Shit. Roger." I pull him into a hug. Maybe it's not the best thing to do, but it's all I can think of. Roger doesn't seem to mind. He presses his face into my shoulder and cries.

(to be continued)


	8. It doesn't happen to boys

Disclaimer: RENT is Jonathan Larson's.

**night**

"It shouldn't happen to boys," he says.

When Roger has stopped crying, we sit together on the top step. He presses against me; I hold an arm around his shoulders.

"It shouldn't happen to anyone," I say. I know what Roger means, though: he never expected it could happen to him. Women are conditioned to know. Women carry mace and avoid dark alleys, but society doesn't tell men what can happen to them. Society doesn't tell us that our asses are just as open to violation as a woman's vagina, and that it'll hurt a lot more since rapist don't tend to carry lubricant.

I do not mean in any way to belittle the psychological trauma of rape, regardless of gender. It's horrible. It's one of the most horrible things that can happen to a person.

But with men, society doesn't warn us of the threat. Estimations are that rapes of men are vastly underreported. Of course. We're not supposed to be raped. We're not supposed to be victims.

The experience is horrible, regardless of gender, but it's very different. And let's face it, the rape of women is more often discussed and mentioned; most people associate "rape victim" with "woman".

Not that I would know what to do for a woman, but sitting here now, I keep asking myself, _What do I do? What can I do?_

Roger huddles closer to me. This poor kid, he thinks I know. "You talked about this with the cops?" I ask. Roger nods. "Hey…" Usually, my contact with Roger is fairly limited. He'll get into a tussle with just about anyone; Roger has very little physical reserve. He's slept in my bed or on the floor nearby enough times that proximity _cannot_ be an issue.

Nevertheless, I pause before I rest a hand on his cheek and force him to look at me. There are moments when saying something extremely true and extremely basic trumps any and all other emotions. There are phrases that stop the world.

_I have AIDS. _

Probably the one I know best, which reminds me that he'll need a test now, but I don't mention that in this moment. "You did a good thing reporting this," I tell him. It sounds like absolute bullshit, but he's got to be doubting himself.

Roger looks away. "I didn't," he said. "A kid on the team, he…"

"Turned himself in?" I ask, sounding like a cop show.

Roger nods. He pulls his arms up and clutches his biceps, hugging himself. "They said a little later, just an hour or so later, another kid reported it. He… he'd, um… he saw," Roger stammers, then squeezes his eyes shut. "Fuck," he whispers. He starts to rock.

"Roger."

He shakes his head. "No," he says. He's on the verge of tears again.

"Roger, it's—" But it isn't. It isn't okay. At the last moment of nearly telling him, I realize this. How can I tell him that it's okay? _It's okay that your teammates, at your school, violated and degraded you in the worst way possible._ It's not okay.

He looks at me, trembling. "There's thirteen players on the soccer team," he said. "That's twelve besides me."

The implication of this hits me, and I want to be sick. "Did they all…?" _rape you_. I don't need to say it.

Roger shakes his head. "Not all," he says. He swipes his eyes and suddenly stands up. "I don't want to talk about this," he says, shaking his head.

I stand, too. "Okay. If you ever do feel like talking—"

"Thanks," he interrupts. "Right now I'm just going to bed."

I nod and head towards the loft. Roger pauses, and he says, "Hey, Collins?"

"Yeah?"

He's biting his lip. "Please don't tell Mark," Roger says.

"Roger—"

"Please," Roger interrupts. "If he knew, it'd… he wouldn't…"

I shake my head. "Mark will want to help you, Roger." True, Mark has a temper. I can see why Roger wouldn't want to tell; he can barely say it even to me, who wouldn't fear someone's impatience? "He—"

"He'll be so angry with me."

"What?" I heard him perfectly, but I choose not to believe I heard that. I choose not to believe he thinks that, not until he affirms it.

Roger buries his face in his hands. "Wouldn't you be?" he asks, his voice muffled. "Wouldn't you be upset about… about your boyfriend getting himself cocked by a group of other guys?"

"Roger…" I step towards him, and he lets out a strangled sound like a trapped animal. _Roger, you don't think this constitutes cheating?_

He pulls his head up and shakes himself. He looks at me, bites his lip, and pushes past me into the loft.

_Mark_

I clean up the Scrabble game, already planning the slightly hurt look that will make Roger promise that we'll play again soon. If he actually thinks I'm offended, he knows how to make it up to me.

Unless he's in a funk.

I glance at the door, wishing I could see through it. The "minute" Collins wanted has become several minutes, at least half an hour. What's going on? What's he saying to Roger that he can't say in front of me?

What's Roger saying that he can't to me?

What does he think, really? I'm his boyfriend. He doesn't know how to have a boyfriend. Ignoring that he seems to have gone off sex for the past two weeks, he seems to have gone off _me_, as well. He's barely speaking to me, keeping some big secret he won't even begin to share.

What's the point in having a boyfriend if all he wants is to be held, and his reciprocation consists entirely in cooking? I like Roger's cooking, but I want to fuck. I'm twenty-two years old; I have needs! And Roger, I love Roger, but he sucks like a Hoover. I want him.

The door opens; I have my guilting expression already on my face, when Roger steps in and the expression falls. "Roger?" I ask. He doesn't seem to be looking at me, or at anything, with his eyes so unfocused. He's shaking, and I can see that he's been crying.

"Roger?"

He glances at me, shrugs and says, "I'm gonna get to bed."

"Hey!" What does he think he's doing? Something's horribly wrong, and he intends not to tell me? This is _my home_. "Roger, tell me—"

"Mark."

I stop to see what Collins wants, and in the moment my eyes are off him Roger makes a break for the bedroom. "What is it?" I ask, annoyed. "Can it wait?"

"No," he says. "It's important. I need to talk to you about Roger."

My spine fuses. Collins knows. Why am I always last to know? "What is it?" I ask again.

"You know he quit soccer," Collins begins.

"When?" I ask. "He… said the game on Friday was cancelled." _Yeah,_ he had said. _The other team, I dunno, they forfeited, so that's it, no game._ He had seemed genuinely upset.

Collins is shaking his head.

I ask the obvious question: "Why would he do that?" Why, after years of rising early to run, keeping a soccer ball under his bed, cleaning his cleats every Sunday, would he just quit?

"Mark, sit down."

My body stiffens. He's preparing me for bad news; I wish he wouldn't. My mind races a mile a minute, wondering what's going on. Roger's mom called the school. The guys on his team are still giving him a hard time for being gay. They're hitting him. His coach is giving him a hard time. His grades are dropping. All scenarios that would explain Roger's moods and give him reason to quit.

I sit on the couch and look at Collins, making clear my impatience. Something is amiss with my boyfriend, and I just want to know what it is so I can go into the next room and set everything right. Roger will never spit it out himself.

Even Collins seems unable to speak. _Fuck._ Since when does Collins not tell me what's going on? He's always talking about how philosophy is a search for truth, and how everyone's truth is different and I should stay away from Heidegger and Kierkegaard for my own safety.

_"So why do you read it?" _

_"Because I don't believe them, Mark. Well maybe Kierkegaard a bit. The point is, it's deep stuff. You have to be ready." _

_"That why you make your classes laugh?" The comment came from Roger. "Keeping them from going under?"_

But he could always tell the truth.

"What's going on?" I ask, trying not to sound nervous and sounding impatient instead.

"Roger was raped."

_… _

_What! _

_Collins did not just say that. He wouldn't. It can't. For hell's sake, Roger's a boy, it doesn't happen to boys. _

_It can. _

_No. No. It didn't._

"What?" I demand. He... and I wanted to... "That's not _funny_! That's sick!"

"I know," Collins says.

"Then why would you say it?" I snap.

Collins frowns at me. He doesn't have to say anything. I'm numb, and in the suppressed, still-thinking part of my brain, I don't believe he's joking. "Mark."

"'Cause that's a really fucked up thing to say!" The pitch of my voice rises quickly.

"Mark—"

"You know, that's just… that's sick. That's just—"

"You know, he can hear you."

I pause. "What?"

"Roger can hear you. Think about it, Mark. He knows what I told you. Now you're telling me that it's sick and fucked up to even talk about. So if you want to go on bitching that it's messed up, go on with that, or go tell your boyfriend that you still love him and he didn't do anything wrong."

When he puts it like that, it's obvious.

Roger's under the covers when I go in, cuddled up against the wall. I'm supposed to lie down next to him. I'm supposed to protect him. The wall can't hurt him. I'm never supposed to.

That's too much. I can't do that. How am I expected to do that? How can _I_ protect him? And it's not that I wouldn't if I could, if I could've kept this from happening, but how could I?

"Rog?"

I sit on the edge of the bed. "Yes?" Roger croaks. He's been crying. Of course he's been crying.

"Um… you're hogging the blankets." I'm a chicken.

"Oh." He shifts and pushes the covers towards me. "I'm sorry."

"That's okay." I slip under the covers next to him. Roger's so tense he's shaking, but I feel his body fight against him as he tries to relax. "Roger, I…" I know what happened to you. I want you to know, baby, that I love you so much, and I'm sorry it happened, and I'll do anything I can to help you out. I'm sorry they saw me kissing you at the game five months ago, because if that didn't happen, this wouldn't have happened. I'm sorry you ever met me. Maybe if you hadn't, you wouldn't know.

"I love you." I press closer to him, pull his body into mine and hold him, more for my need than his. "I love you. I love you."

Roger pulls away enough to turn and face me. And it's so wrong that I should be the one crying, and Roger should be holding me and comforting me. He shouldn't be expected to take care of me.

But he's doing it, and it's making me cry so much harder.

To be continued


	9. Reinforcements

Disclaimer: RENT and its characters belong to Jonathan Larson

**Tuesday **

**morning **

_Mark_

He's still asleep when I pad out of the bedroom, the floor still too cold through two pairs of socks. It's one of the first times Roger has ever been asleep when I awoke. Rather than revel in it, rather than lie there and watch him sleep, I rise and leave the room.

There's cold coffee waiting; I pour myself a mug. _Yuck_, but it floods right through me and wakes me up. He's going to need me.

My mind wanders, and I keep believing this is just another morning, just a lazy Sunday to be spent cuddling and kissing and nuzzling. _It isn't._

On the table, I find a note with my name on it. My nails seem almost translucent as I lift the note and unfold it.

_Mark,_ it says. _I know it is unfairly simple for me to write this, while you get the difficult job of actually getting through the day. If it gets rough, a few ideas:_

I recoiled, momentarily offended. I didn't need instructions for getting through the day! What did he take me for, a fool? A child?

Then I wondered what I would do when Roger awoke, and I read on.

_Try to talk to Roger. That's the worst job of all. You'll hate hearing what he has to say, and you'll hate, the entire time, having to listen to his apologies. He thinks he cheated on you, Mark. Tell him he did nothing wrong. This wasn't his fault. Don't invalidate what he says and try not to get frustrated. _

_Get some time for yourself, even if it's just jerking off in the shower or having a walk. Relax. Trust me, you've got to seek this out, because you won't have a relaxing day. _

_There should be some soup in the cupboard. The labels have heating directions. Food equals life! But Mark + cooking death. _

I laughed. It was true, my culinary prowess was… a term useful only for satire!

_Take care of yourself, and as much as you can, take care of Roger. _

_-Collins _

_P.S. Where did Napoleon keep his armies? (It's a joke. I'll tell you the answer later)_

Trust Collins to cheer a guy up! I set the letter on the table, take another slurp of coffee and immediately pull away. Cold coffee is _disgusting. _I toss what's left in the sink and rinse my mouth with water.

"Mark?"

I raise my eyes. Roger stands in the doorway, his hand grasping at nothing, eyes unfocused. "H-hey, Roger." Why am I afraid? I'm not afraid of Roger, certainly, but now I don't know what to say to him. "Morning."

He nods. "Good morning," Roger says, mimicking like a student in school.

"Are you hungry?" I ask, remembering Collins' letter. "I could make you some soup, if you like." That doesn't even _sound_ like me. "Me" is lying in bed, caterpillaring up in the blankets and putting on the puppy dog face so he'll fix breakfast for me.

Roger shakes his head.

"Oh. Um… well what do you feel like doing?"

He shrugs. Dammit, he's being difficult and Collins didn't say anything that helps with this! Then Roger steps forward, nearly slips and just manages to catch himself. He looks at his hand where it slammed against a cupboard to keep him up, like he it hurts now and he can't understand why.

It gave me the chance to fuss over him, and to get rid of him. "If you're still tired, why don't you go back to bed?" I try not to sound like I'm sending him away. Apparently I fail: Roger's face falls, and I feel a twinge of guilt. To assuage this, I go over and lay a hand on his arm. Roger looks at my hand, then he looks at me, his mouth partly open in question. _What?_ It's barely been two minutes, and I don't understand this frustration with him!

Yes, I do. The truth is, it hasn't been two minutes. It's been weeks of this, weeks of those blank begging looks and me wishing I knew what he wanted when he seems like a touch on the hand might cure everything. It's been weeks of those pre-crying whimpers whenever I ask him for sex—I understand now, but the frustration built before I knew. Roger is not, and has not been, behaving like a boyfriend.

Now, knowing, I understand why. I understand why he would tense and tremble whenever I touched him. I understand why he looked to me, asking for something I could not give him.

But I'm still so frustrated!

"What is it, baby? What do you need?"

He shakes his head. "Nothing. You're right. I'm going back to bed." He doesn't sound as though he's shunning me: he sounds too depressed to care.

Maybe I should go with him? But maybe he would feel better alone. "Roger?" I ask. He turns to face me. "Would… you like me to come lie down with you?"

A smile sneaks onto Roger's face, and he nods. "That would be nice."

At first, it's awkward beneath the covers. I don't want to touch him. Earlier I touched his arm and he reacted strangely: now, I don't want to further upset things.

Roger has other ideas. When I don't come close, he cuddles up to me, looping an arm around my waist and nuzzling. I run my fingers through his hair. It's always full of tiny knots, at least since he grew it out.

"Roger?" I ask, when he's calm. _Can we talk_?

"Mmm?"

"Why did you quit the team?" I wonder. "Was it just being undressed with other guys? Because if you want, you can have the bedroom and I'll—" I stop. Roger's grip has tightened.

"I quit the team because," he says, then pauses so long it could be a new sentence, "I was in a fight with the team captain."

Poor Roger. As horrible as this is, he also lost the team over a stupid rivalry! The team captain never liked Roger—_I'm better than him,_ Roger would tell me, _and it kills him. _"I'm sure if you asked they would let you play again," I say, still raking my fingers through his hair. There are fewer knots now. "If you—"

He looks at me. "I was in a fight with the team captain," Roger repeated. "In the locker room. Then he pushed me down, and, he…" Roger's eyes go blank, focused internally, and I realize what he is trying to say.

"Him?" I ask. It was the captain of his soccer team!

Roger nods. "And…"

"And?" Does he mean there was more than one?

"He told them that… that if they wouldn't… he made it sound like if anyone wouldn't then he was gay, too, and he… they…"

"Shh." I can't listen to this anymore. I was frustrated. What's wrong with me! I was frustrated with him, after this! I hug Roger as best I can and kiss his hair. "You don't have to tell me if you're not ready."

"I didn't mean to!" he whimpers. "I didn't, Mark."

"You didn't do anything wrong," I agree. "You didn't, Roger."

"I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry." _I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this…_

"I'm sorry," Roger insists.

What can I say? I can't tell him again not to be sorry. He is sorry, whether it's right or not. "It's okay," I tell him. Later, when I realize what I've said, when I realize that I've validated Roger's belief that he is at fault, that he somehow caused or earned a locker room gangrape, I have to leave him alone and pray he doesn't hear me while I hurl.

**afternoon**

_Collins_

She notices me through the window and shoots as vicious a glare as she can muster in that fraction of a second, then returns to her lecture. I lean back against the wall and tap my fingers against my leg. Suddenly I understand why Mark smokes cigarettes—I never did have any taste for the things, not with tobacco at any rate, but standing here waiting for the class's dismissal, I wish I had something to do with myself.

She didn't always hate me. Strangely enough, and because coincidences, I believe, do drive the stronger events of the world, she was the first "friend" I ever had in an institution. School.

People don't expect that's something I'm very concerned with, friendship. It's something for teenagers. It's for girls braiding colored threads and boys who are thoroughly self-conscious so they slap half a million high-fives in a day. Friendship is for five-year-olds holding hands and lovers who can't love. Friendship is not for self-secure twenty-coughcoughcough-year-olds who have books and humor and secure occupations.

Bullshit.

The truth of the matter is, friendship is all I have and all I'm likely to have for some time, seeing as my last boyfriend gave me nothing but AIDS and grey hairs. And yeah, I like contact.

I like people in general, especially the broken ones. I like trying to understand them, I like trying to help them, I like being around them. I don't know when it becomes love. It does. I don't know when. And that's what I have with Mark, a broken person, a mystery I continue to struggle to pick apart.

With Roger, it's different. Sometimes it appears, I'm told, that Roger and I don't have a give-and-take relationship at all. That's untrue. Roger fulfills most of my needs. Contact is a major one. Humans crave intimacy, we need to be touched, and Roger—three weeks ago, his old self—Roger was always good for that. He hugs as much as I do and he has discovered that I'm ticklish.

Mark sees him as being immature at times, and yes, I agree with that, but it's most important that he's a good kid. If Roger sees someone upset, he wants to cheer them up. It's that innate goodness that makes me want to help him, that and his willingness to accept help—as a general statement. Now, who couldn't help Roger?

I glance through the little window. Surely not…

The students rise and begin gathering their papers. I straighten. Hopefully, this will go well.

Meredith hasn't spoken to me since she learned that I know Roger. She's glanced at me, shot dirty looks, but not spoken. When I head into the classroom, when all the students are gone, she is rapidly gathering her papers.

"Can we talk?" I ask.

She doesn't look at me as she replies, "I don't see why, we're got nothing to talk about—"

"It's about your son."

At least she pauses. "What about him?" she asks.

I sigh. It was tough enough to tell Mark. It was tough enough to _learn_! How am I supposed to tell her? "Meredith, maybe you should sit down—"

"Just tell me," she says. "I'm in a hurry."

"I really think—"

"Forget it," she snaps. "I need to go. _You_ look after him, he doesn't want to be my problem—"

"He was raped."

She freezes. For a moment, nothing happens. Meredith is still. The clock ticks. And then she clears her throat and says, "You're a rotten man."

_Maybe, but your son's not._ "He was raped, Meredith," I repeat, keeping my tone even. It's not easy for her to hear, I respect that.

"Why are you telling me this?" she asks in a small, shy voice, with good reason. I told her I didn't want her around. I proved the field even. She must think, I realize, that I'm torturing her.

I shrug. "Seventeen-year-old boy gets assaulted by his soccer team," I say, "stands to reason he might need his mom."

(to be continued)


	10. Selfsame Fears

Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson, no disrespect whatsoever meant.

**Tuesday**

**evening**

_Mark_

Roger sits opposite me, wearing sweats that are looser than they were last week and a wool sweater. He's shivering, anyway. Between us is a game of Scrabble.

Roger isn't playing very well.

The trouble in making soup for lunch and breakfast is that now we're almost out. I think about my mother as I watch Roger, clutching all I could give him for sustenance, a mug of weak tea. He didn't even want it. I boiled the water, anyway.

_Get something inside you,_ I figured. _You barely eat anymore. Or drink…_ trying not to mention the alcohol smell on his breath, but when he blushed I had to ask him. _Have you been drinking, Roger? Not today, but… you smell like alcohol, sometimes. _

_I haven't been sleeping,_ Roger admitted. _I've been taking NyQuil. I'm sorry, Mark._

"Roger?"

He raises his head sharply. His eyes are unfocused.

"It's… your turn, Roger, if you still feel like playing."

Roger nods. He looks at his tiles, then at the board, and spells out, _j-u-n-k_. In Scrabble, "junk" is a costly word, earning Roger double points for crossing a pink space, as well as using two rare letters.

"Good one."

"Thanks."

"Roger… did anything, uh… did anything happen today?" I ask.

I try to distract myself from thoughts of the cupboards. Roger liked to do marketing. He liked to take a fixed sum and scribble with pencil sums and figures in his notebook. He liked food.

Now that Roger's gone off, there's nothing but a tin of soup in the cupboard, and it's got meat chunks in it, which no one is going to eat. In fact the only reason we have the soup is that we can't bring ourselves to throw out any food, even food we know we're going to eat.

_Pizza._ I remember sitting at home in my room back in Scarsdale once, sucking tomato sauce off my fingertips.

"Your turn," Roger says.

It is.

"You know, I was thinking, I…" I sigh. Roger's watching me in that eerie manner he has lately acquired, the way that I feel him watching me though his eyes are looking on another plane entirely. "My mom's home alone a lot," I try. "Maybe we could go visit her some time? She'd love to meet you." And, more importantly, she would know what to do with him—for him. She would know when I don't.

Roger nods. "That could be nice," he says.

"We don't have to. It was just an idea." I bite back offense, try to tell myself that Roger was not expressing a lack of enthusiasm for visiting my mother but that he just doesn't care.

Roger shrugs, and I feel a slight itch. _Don't consider my feelings or anything, Rog._

What is happening to me? Why am I thinking like this? After what Roger's been through, I want him to consider my feelings that he doesn't want to meet my mother? Not even doesn't want to, just isn't terribly enthused.

"I think I'm going to get a new job," I tell him. "We could use the money. As long as my screenplays keep being so poor." I laugh, hoping he'll laugh, too, and Roger does manage a smile. He should. He's kept me from my work. I've been here, nonstop trying to take care of him, nonstop frustrated with nothing to do.

"Me, too," Roger says. "Now that I'm out of school. I'll work."

I nod. "If that's what you want." Maybe it would be good for him to get out of the house a few hours a day.

He mumbles something like, "'srillylate."

"What?" I watch him, trying to watch the words form on his lips since Roger has taken to mumbling everything into his lap.

"Collins," Roger says. He glances up at me. "He's really late."

"Yeah." I spell out a word on the board, then sit back. Roger has fixed an intense stare on me, and I have the distinct impression that it's been there for a while. "What?"

"Collins is really late," Roger repeats emphatically.

I shrug. Collins has been late before, he probably stopped for a pint or something. It's not that important.

"Maybe we should call him."

I roll my eyes. "So, he's a big boy, he can take care of himself."

Roger sets down his tiles and his mug. He gets up and walks away, hunkers down outside on the fire escape. I sigh.

_What did I say wrong now?_ And I just don't have the stamina to go and find out, not when the loft is quiet and I'm alone. I lie back and close my eyes.

"Collins!"

I wake up when Roger practically shouts out, and to any casual onlooker it might appear that he is attempting to strangle our roommate. Luckily I've seen them hug enough times that I'm not worry; I just sit up and finger-comb my hair.

"Hey, man." Collins hugs him in return, not as enthusiastically but then he doesn't need to, for Roger just to be held is enough. I notice that in a small motion Collins kisses him. It's not in the way I would kiss him, just barely touching his lips to Roger's hair, but it's there.

Has he always done that?

Roger doesn't release Collins. _Enough already._ "You're really late," he says. "You know you're an ass, right?" His fingers curl in Collins' jacket, and I want to tell him, _enough, Roger! It's an hour, you can survive on your own for an hour!_

"Yeah, I'm an ass. Let go."

Roger does. That's when he sees the woman standing behind Collins. She's tall, with curly dark blond hair tied away from her face and too many lines around her eyes for her years. Roger's body stiffens. He stares. Then he quivers slightly, and he says, "Mama…"

He steps forward and she hugs him. "Roger," she says. She kisses him. "Roger… honey, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what happened."

"It's okay," Roger says.

"I heard what those boys did to you."

Roger stiffens. Slowly, very slowly, he pulls away from her and steps back. _What's going on?_ "You had nothing to do with that," he mutters quickly.

"Honey—" She reaches out to touch him, but Roger jerks back.

"I… I have to… I'm going to go get a, a sweater. It's cold. Excuse me." With his shoulders hunched and his head bowed, Roger hurries into the bedroom and shuts the door behind him. He did not go to fetch a sweater.

"Oh, my." His mother sighs. "I apologize."

"Don't." I didn't expect Collins to speak gently to her, not after what she did to Roger.

She shook her head, took a deep breath and swiped at her eyes. "No," she said. "Um… I… I'm so sorry. Is there anything, anything at all that I can do to help? He doesn't want me around but there must be some way—"

"You could give us some money for food," I suggest. Collins raises his eyebrows at me. Well, he can keep his shock. I've seen her apartment. This is a woman of secure finances.

Apparently my suggestion seems acceptable to Roger's mother because she nods. "Yes," she says. "I could just shop… I know what Roger eats," which after seventeen years she should, "and unless either of you is vegetarian, or has allergies…"

"No," Collins says. "That's a fantastic idea. Thank you." Then he says something that make me want to strangle him: "Mark can go with you." And he gives me a horrid grin.

_Collins_

Meredith is not as bad as all that. Maybe she was unready for motherhood, widowhood, and for a child like Roger especially. Who is ready for any of it? But throughout, she's done her best.

Maybe her best isn't much, but it's her best and credit must be given as due.

When she and Mark have gone, I knock on the bedroom door. "Roger?" He doesn't answer. "Roger, come out, I want to talk to you." Still Roger doesn't answer. I need to know what's going on.

Since Roger told me what happened… no, before that. It can't have been long after the rape, when Roger always hugged himself when he was sitting alone, when he began looking over his shoulder, his spine curved and his eyes could no longer focus. That was when this suspicion began, this fear, and it's been growing ever since.

I push open the door.

Roger is standing at the closet. He has one forearm slung up against the door and his eyes pressed to that forearm, and he's shaking.

"Hey."

I stand next to him. "Roger."

"Oh, God!"

Roger turns away from the door and takes a step towards the bed. "Hey, hey." I grab his shoulders gently, not about to let him just walk away, equally not about to forget what he's been through, but Roger neither struggles nor cries out. "Roger. What's going on?"

"Please just let me go to bed."

I frown to myself. "What's going on, Roger?" I ask again.

He shakes his head. I expect something senseless from this semi-hysterical, but what I hear is, very clearly, "I went to the school today, to ask about signing out." Roger shakes his head again. "They all know," he says. "Everyone. The guys think it's funny and the girls all hate me."

He pauses, and for a moment Roger shakes and whimpers, then he calms himself enough to ask me, "What is it you wanted?"

I shake my head. _I wanted to tell you to lighten up on your mother. She cares about you. You don't have to hate her._ "Just to see if you were all right." That fear again, it's a heavy thing and I have trouble breathing from it.

"Really?" Roger asks.

"Yeah, really."

He looks up at me and smiles. "Thanks. Really, Thomas, thank you for everything, for being my friend, for helping me… I really appreciate it. You never even had to care."

What's going on?

"Sure I did, Roger. You're not a person anyone can just not care about."

He grins without merriment. "That's untrue," says Roger. "It's very easy for most people to just not care, but you're not like that." That fears pulses in my chest. _No, no, no…_ Roger shakes himself. He sniffles and brushes away a tear. "What am I saying?" he asks. "I'm sorry, I'm so tired. Is it all right if I just…?"

"Yeah." _No!_ "Go ahead. Good night, Roger."

"Good night." Roger hugs me, then collapses onto the bed. The kid's knocked out.

It's only by luck that I see it. When I've pulled open the door and spilled in light, I glance back at Roger and note strange shapes under the bed, smooth curves, like—

"Oh, fuck."

The worst part is the glimmer of smugness that I was right, but more important, expecting it, I was prepared. I shake Roger.

"Wake up. Roger. Roger, get up."

"Wha…"

I pull him to his feet and shove a bottle under his nose. "Did you take these?" I ask. He doesn't move. "Roger—you took these." He nods. "Okay."

I lead Roger into the bathroom and find what I wanted, a little brown glass bottle in the medicine box, the cup to measure the dosage. Roger just stands there, he's waiting. "Drink this."

He doesn't move.

"Roger, you'll drink this if I have force it down your throat." I have nothing else to threaten him with, not now. Luckily he seems unaware, and he drinks. I give him a cup of water. "Now drink that, and keep drinking. I'll be right back. Try to drink three cups."

Leaving him may just be the stupidest move I've ever made, but I don't have much of a choice. I leave the bathroom door open to watch him drink while I make the phone call.

"Hello, operator? I need an ambulance…"

The fear has dissipated completely. I'm not afraid anymore. It's happened. It's over.

And part of me knows that I'm being mindlessly optimistic, but at least this isn't the waiting but the crescendo.

(To be conitnued)


	11. Aftermath, Again

Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson

**night**

_Mark_

Mrs.—no. Not Mrs. Davis, I remind myself. Roger's mother remarried and his mother's last name… I don't know his mother's new last name. I don't even know what _Davis_ is. Is it his father's name? Or maybe it his stepfather's, or his mother's maiden name. I don't know.

I don't even know this, about my own boyfriend. I mean, I thought he would just tell me when he was ready, I assumed he was waiting until he wanted to discuss his personal history with me.

His mother and I carry the groceries up to the loft. We've never had so much food since moving in: milk and popcorn kernels, pancake mix and chocolate chips (not my taste, but Roger's, she says), and meat, actual _meat_. I can't say I haven't missed it.

She sets the bags down and begins putting away the groceries as though she belongs here.

"Can I ask you something?"

She pauses. "Yes?" This entire time, we've barely spoken a word to one another.

"Why did you send him there?" By which I mean Saint Nicholas's School for Gifted Children, where "gifted" can mean smart or broken and everyone knows which end of the spectrum Roger's on.

She tells me, "It was the best option." I can't help but scoff. She continues, defensive, "There are no other programs in this city—"

"Mainstream programs for the emotional disturbed?" If she thinks she doesn't have to face up to what she did, she's wrong. "Is that how you like classifying your son, emotionally disturbed?"

"It's not how I like it, no, but the truth is not based on what I like." For all I hate her right now, she can sound nearly as strong as Collins. "Roger would never survive in a regular school. He's too soft."

"And he's better now? Stronger, after that?"

Her jaw is clenched as she answers, "I never dreamed anything so horrible would happen to my baby." _He's not your baby,_ I thought angrily. _Roger's MY baby!_ "I thought he would be safer. He had access to the support he needed—"

"You wanted to school to do your job," I interrupt.

"I wanted the school to do _his father's_ job."

Roger hasn't told me much about his father, but what he has told me amount to hero worship. He loved his father, and his father loved him. "What?"

"Roger's father taught him, encouraged him, to be this way. I tried to put a stop to it. I was the bad guy for telling my five-year-old he couldn't have ballet lessons, for forcing him to spend time with the other children, for trying to make him more normal. But no. No, Roger was _special_. He had a unique spirit. And look where that got him!"

I grit my teeth. She talks about her son's, her _baby_ son's rape like it's his own fault. "Roger came home on the verge of tears plenty often." And the truth is that I didn't see it. I thought his overbearing attentions love and boredom. The truth is, I was happy in his arms or in his mouth, never thinking he was only fucking to feel better, to keep it from me. "I don't understand how any mother could do that to her son."

"Of course you don't. You can't even begin to understand. But if, for one second, you can imagine having two people rely completely upon you, knowing that whatever goes wrong for them will be your fault—"

Later, I'll wonder if she means it, what happened at his school. Now, I just say, "You know, from what Roger's told me you weren't around all that much after his dad died."

"You mean after my husband died! Being a mother is not being unfeeling. Stop trying to blame me for this, Mark. I'm sorry for it, I wish I could change it—if it could have been me instead of him, don't for one second think I wouldn't have it so. And yes, Mark, I have thought this my fault. What good does any of it do? Or can you just nor endure it, that it's as much your fault as it is mine?"

I stare at her. What else can I do? Because the absolute truth is that it is as much my fault as it is hers, and that kills me. I'm the reason they know.

As much as I hate them, I feel tears gathering behind my eyes.

The telephone rings. I'm altogether too grateful for the noise. "Hello?"

"Mark?"

"Hey, Collins. What—where are you?"

"I'm with Roger—"

"Roger's not here?" I ask. I glance at the bedroom door. I assumed he was asleep. "Where are you?"

Collins says, "Let me talk to Meredith for a minute, okay, man?"

"Meredith?"

"Roger's mom."

"Oh. Uh, yeah, ok." I hold out the phone. "It's Collins." And Meredith takes it.

I return to putting away groceries, glancing up every few items to see Meredith nodded. One hand shields her eyes. "All right," she says. "Yes, we… we will. Here's Mark. Mark?"

I take the phone, and forget about her entirely. "What's going on?" I ask. "Where are you guys?"

Collins takes a deep breath. "We're at the hospital."

"What?" I grab the phone, my only link to my boyfriend and to Collins. There's not a word for Collins. My roommate. My friend. Neither seems to measure up. The only thing keeping me from running out the door is that I don't know which hospital. "Why? Did they… is Roger… is he sick? Did he get a disease from them?"

_Them._ A bunch of seventeen-year-old rapists.

"No, Mark. Roger's all right. Physically." Collins sounds tired. He sounds drained. "Listen. Roger overdosed, while you were gone. He's resting now… he's going to be fine, but he's pretty upset. If you could come down here, I think it'd mean a lot."

_Jesus Christ._

"Of course I'm coming. Where are you?"

--

"Roger!"

He's lying on the bed when we arrive, curled up with his back to me so that all I really see are the bottoms of his feet. His toes are curled, and he's shaking. In this curtained-off space, there is a hospital bed and a chair. Collins is curled up on the chair, watching the curtain.

"Roger."

I notice that his hospital gown is open in the back, showing at least two other paper dresses underneath it. I sit on the bed and rest a hand on his shoulder.

Roger makes a small noise, not quite a cry and not nearly a word.

"Honey," Meredith says. Then she blows her nose as quietly as she can.

"Roger," I say again. I touch his neck, have to push his hair up to do it, and he flinches but allows this. He's warm. His pulse is beating. Collins is watching me. I feel Roger's pulse, and I realize how nearly I lost him, that I didn't even know he was missing, that even for me he couldn't stay alive. "Thank God," I say, not because I mean it but because it adds emphasis, "you're still alive."

"Collins," Roger rasps. "Not God."

Collins glances at Meredith, then at me, and says, "Mark. Could I have a word with you?" and pulls me out into the hall.

I glance back at the curtain. "What'd you do that for?" I want to know. I'm all but straining to return. Roger needs me! He can't be left alone, not with her, not after this!

Very solemnly, Collins tells me, "Roger was practically hysterical after you'd gone. I calmed him down enough to convince him to go to bed. When I saw the bottles, I added one and two, gave Roger ipecac and called an ambulance."

I nod.

"I'm telling you this so you don't go asking him."

I nod again. I know what ipecac is—makes you throw up—but I didn't know we had any. "Lucky we had it around," I say.

Collins scoffs. "Lucky, my ass. I bought it three weeks ago."

"What? Why?"

He shrugs. "I had a feeling," he says.

I'm beginning to get angry. Why does Collins insist on behaving as though he knows everything? Why's he have to be so damned superior? My boyfriend, my baby, my… my Roger is lying there almost dead, and I don't know what's going on or what to do, and Collins is lording it over me, the fuck!

"What feeling?" I demand.

"That this might happen, something like this," Collins says.

"You knew?!" I don't believe it. I can't see how ridiculous it is, to claim he knew. "You knew this was going to happen, and you did nothing to stop it?"

"What nothing?" Collins demands. His voice is low. Later I'll learn that Roger hears, anyway. "He's alive, isn't he?"

I open my mouth to retort, but am interrupted by Meredith's arrival. She dabs a tissue at her eyes, then crumples it in her hand and says, quite clearly, "Thank you, Thomas." I know she's practiced this speech. Equally, I know she means it. "I know I haven't been very nice at all lately. But you saved his life, and that… I… thank you."

Collins hugs her. She doesn't look like a woman who hugs often, but she allows this, even hugs him in return.

--

They discharge him that same night, a combination of Collins' influence and the fact that Roger's there on Medicare and he's already had his treatment.

I hold his hand on the subway, squeezing every so often, and Roger will turn towards me, but his eyes are dead and see nothing. I don't let go of Roger's hand on the way up to the loft.

I nearly lost him.

I nearly lost him, and Collins saw, and I didn't. Collins was there, and I wasn't.

The loft seems to echo as we say good night. Collins touches my shoulder, then goes off to his room, as Roger and I to ours. In the bedroom, Roger pushes off his jeans and stands, watching the bed.

_Oh_. He's waiting for me to get in.

"Um… maybe you'd feel better sleeping against the wall tonight," I suggest. Between the wall and me, he'll be safe. Between the wall and me, nothing can hurt him. If he wakes up even to go to the bathroom, I'll know.

"'s okay," he says. These are the first words Roger has spoken since I arrived at the hospital. Standing in his T-shirt and underwear, he's looking at the bed and holding his hands cupped in front of his penis. I don't think he even knows he's doing it.

My heart is thumping too hard against my gut. It hurts. "I'd feel better, Roger."

He lays down on the bed, curled up against the wall. I put on my pajamas and lay down next to him. It isn't like it used to be, me and Roger together, when the bed felt full. There's so much space between us now.

"Roger?" I ask. He says nothing, but he makes a small noise. "I… I'm glad you're still here," I tell him. What am I supposed to say? How could you do this to me? I love you, how could you do this to me?

My eyes are itching to cry. Strange to think it was only last night when I cried. Strange to think…

Strange to think that maybe if I had had the presence of mind to hold my abused love of a boyfriend and stroke him and cuddle him and tell him that I love him and it wasn't his fault, maybe he wouldn't have been in the hospital tonight.

"Roger, please—" No, my voice did _not_ just break! "Roger, come here."

For a moment he says nothing, but I feel the shift in his weight and tension as he considers. He shifts onto his other side, facing me. It's an improvement.

Even lying down, he keeps his eyes downcast, not looking at me at all, but it isn't as though he won't. It's that he can't.

Before, at least I could say, _Poor Roger, he didn't do anything, he did nothing wrong. _That's not true anymore.

What changes? Roger really fucked up, and I'm living in this shallow aftermath of almost losing him, but in this shallow aftermath he's lying beside me and he's trying to suppress shivers. Here, now, I can't hate him, because it's too dangerous? Because what if I hate him and he tries again?

I pull Roger against me, an easier task than used to be, and rub his back. It's tense, muscle stretched thin over bone, the ridges of his spine protruding.

"It's okay," I say. It's okay that you could think of no one but yourself. It's okay that you decided your life was solely your property. It's okay that you don't care enough about me to even try to keep on living.

As much as I want to say these things, I don't. Because what if I do? What if I say these things, and Roger starts crying and spends the next few weeks trying to make it up? What if I say these things and he says nothing, but we'll never be as close again? What if I say these things and he tries again?

Really it's a matter of Roger vs. my anger, and the anger will pass but, if I'm lucky, Roger will be here for a few more years. I would much rather have the warm, yielding body cuddled up beside me.

"I love you." I kiss his hair and rub his back, and maybe it's just me, but he seems to relax.

To be continued!

Please review? Yeah, it'd be awesome if you reviewed. Please?


	12. In Court

Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson

**Thursday**

_evening _

_Roger_

"You are sexually active, are you not, Mr. Davis?"

"I… was." But since then, Mark hasn't gotten any. I haven't been able to give it.

"Anally?"

_None of your business._ Asked that question anywhere else, I would say so. Now I just say, "Yes." Yes, I was sexually active. Yes, I do enjoy anal sex. Yes, I am a gay male.

"And you enjoyed it?" It's a statement, not a question.

_But this… this is not…_ I feel a hot blush creep across my cheeks. _I have but I didn't want it now._ And until now, I never thought there was anything wrong with enjoying it.

The prosecuting attorney cuts in, "Objection, irrelevant."

"I'm trying," says the defense attorney, "to establish the legitimacy of the case. If the supposed 'victim' enjoys the act itself—"

"Liking sex is not equal to wanting it from every person. Whether or not he enjoys intercourse with his boyfriend is irrelevant if he told the defendants _no._"

The judge announces, "Sustained."

"No further questions."

Before the trial, I was told to ignore the defense attorney. His job, they explained, since he could not deny the actions of his clients, not with three eyewitnesses—which they had—and me, was to make the offense less. He would do that by trying to make it my fault—no, they knew it wasn't, but that was his job.

"When you've had intercourse with your boyfriend, Roger, has it been painful for you?"

The prosecuting attorney is a woman. She gives me a lot of tight-lipped smiles.

"No."

"Why not?"

I had to tell the police about the belt, about how Mark likes to tie me up and he likes to hit me, and I like it, too, but it doesn't hurt, he doesn't hit hard. They kept that out of the trial. No one knows but them and me, and Mark and Collins.

"Objection, vague."

"Overruled."

The judge, I haven't gotten a read on.

"Why didn't it hurt when you and your boyfriend had intercourse?"

"Because… we use lubricant so it won't, and… because he wouldn't hurt me."

"What do you mean, he wouldn't hurt you?"

"If I asked him to stop, he would stop."

"Have you ever asked him to stop?"

"No. I've told him no, never asked him to stop."

"Did you ask your teammates to stop, Roger?"

I can feel my shoulders shaking, and I wish they wouldn't. My face is red, so red it hurts, and I want very much to cry. I glance at the clock. It's growing late, and soon—I hope—the court will go into recess. "Yes," I barely manage to say. _Yes, actually I begged them to stop. Begged them, like a dog, I begged._

"And did they?"

She already knows. "No."

"Did they say anything to you?"

"They said…" I don't want to say this. It's difficult enough to be told, difficult enough to hear. There are words best not spoken, because they are so awful they don't just hurt an individual, they offend society. "They said," I start again, then I swallow and say, "'shut up, faggot.'"

I wish it could stop there. I wish I had never told them anything, so I didn't have to say anything more in front of all these people.

But I told them everything, because I trusted them. I thought once the police knew what had happened, that would be that, and I could move on. "Did you say anything more?"

"'Please stop.'"

"And the response?"

I open my mouth to speak. The words don't come. I try again. "'Don't…'" I close my eyes. "'Don't open your mouth unless you're putting my cock in it.'" And as hard as I try not to let it happen, a tear sneaks out between my eyelids and trickles down my cheek. I brush it away. "I'm sorry."

"Is that part of the quote? He said, 'I'm sorry'?"

"No… I was apologizing."

"And who said these things, Roger? Who said this to you?"

The tears continue to dribble, but I speak evenly. "Michael Evans."

The prosecution moves for a recess until tomorrow.

_Mark_

When we return home, Roger has stopped crying, but his face is flushed. I haven't spoken a word to him. What can I say? The truth is, I almost wish I hadn't gone with him today. I didn't need to know the details.

In the loft, I slump down on the couch while Roger goes into the bedroom to change. I hadn't even known he would be in court today, but when I awoke he was combing his hair down and wearing a long-sleeved, collared shirt.

_"What's going on?" _

_Roger looked up at me. "I, uh… I'm testifying today." He smoothed his shirt. _

_I squeezed his hand. "Do you want me to come with you?" And Roger nodded._

When he emerges from the bedroom, I smile at him and pat the spot beside me. "Come and sit down, baby." I have this idea that Roger will lie down with his head in my lap, and I'll stroke his hair and be absolutely perfectly while he tells me how horrible it had been.

Roger shakes his head. _What? You don't want me?_ He shuffles over to the 'kitchen' part of the room and starts going through drawers. "I'll make you something to eat before work," he says. "Tuna?"

I turn and sling my arm over the back of the couch. "Baby, why don't you come sit with me? I don't have to leave for another hour." _Let me be sweet to you._

I think about what he said in court today. 'I never told him no.' Did he ever want to?

Roger nods. "I'd hate you to go all night on an empty stomach," he says. "I can make you a sandwich from yesterday's chicken." I can tell that he likes being able to say that, even if the food did come from his mother.

"You don't have to feed me."

"Chicken or tuna?"

"Roger…" He stands there, plaintive, holding up a container of chicken and a tin of tuna fish. I don't know exactly how to tell him no. No, Roger, don't take care of me. "Whatever you're in the mood for, babe."

He doesn't speak as he fixes the sandwich. Neither do I. I just don't know what to say. He brings the sandwich over on a plate and sits beside me, like I wanted. I'm surprised to find that I no longer actually want it.

I take a bite of sandwich. It's good, I won't pretend it isn't. I offer it out to Roger, but he shakes his head. "I'm not hungry."

"You haven't eaten all day, Roger."

He looks down at his lap. His shoulders shake. _Why is he crying NOW?!_ "I'm not very hungry," he says.

"You sure?" I ask. "It's a good sandwich. Try it. Roger." He raises his head. I hold out the sandwich, and Roger dutifully takes a bite.

I leave half an hour early for my shift at the bar, not at all pleased at the happiness in my gut. I don't want to get away from my boyfriend.

But I do. I do want to get away from him. I'm all too quick to pull on my coat. "I'll see you tonight," I promise, pulling Roger's head close to kiss his hair. "Take care."

I jog down the stairs, pulling on my scarf as I go. My lungs seem larger already, taking in more air more easily, and when I hit the polluted evening air of New York City, it couldn't taste sweeter.

To be continued...

Please review?


	13. Jumping to Conclusions

Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson

_night_

_Roger _

It's happening again.

They have this game, this tradition, whatever. At school. What it is, is this: no one touches the walls in the boys' shower room. It's cumstained, according to rumor, so touching the wall is touching old cum. It's festering, pus-filled sludge. It's an AIDS bomb. The White Death, they call it.

And it springs to mind as they shove me up against the wall.

No, not they.

It starts with Mikey.

In scrimmage a week ago, I dribbled midfield to within a few yards of the goal then passed to Michael Evans, who had kept pace with me the entire field. I could have made that shot easy, but after years of sport it's instinct to pass whenever possible, if only to practice.

And he missed the goal! Mikey Evans, Team fuckin' Captain, had a clean shot, with Jeremy as goalkeep not even looking at him. Of course, in his defense, Jeremy is not a particularly skilled goalkeep but a Junior Varsity player who's good enough to be our back-up defense. He's a wicked defender.

So today, when we ran scrimmage and I took the ball to the goal, despite Mikey's blatant open position, I took the shot myself. I made it, too, because I don't suck.

Let's get one thing straight, I never wanted to be Team Captain. I wouldn't have minded, since I have a few ideas like either keeping Andrew on midfield or giving him a couple extra laps every day, instead of hoping he'll just catch up, as Mikey hopes. I would have been a real hardass Team Captain, but we would have won games, dammit.

"What was that, Davis? Ever heard of being a team player?"

I roll my eyes. _Fuck off, Evans. _All I want is to get showered off and get home to Mark. That's all. I don't want to bother anyone, I don't want a fight.

"Hey!" Something hits my back. "I'm still your Captain, so answer me, Davis. You wanna get cut?"

I turn. "For what?" I demand. "You gonna cut me for actually making a goal?"

"This team isn't all about _you_. It's about the game."

I scoff. "Learn to play the game, and I'll pass to you. But as long as you're missing clean shots into an open goal at five feet—"

Maybe starting this in front of the rest of the team wasn't smart. Maybe I should have waited until blood had cooled and we were both calm. But then, I didn't start this, Mikey Evans did.

He shoves me. "Hey, shut up, fag!"

I shove back.

"Don't fuckin' touch me!"

Mikey throws a punch. I manage to duck out of the path, but I loose my footing and as I struggle to regain it, he pushes me against the wall.

All I can think of is years and years of cum. Rumor has it these are blue tiles, underneath.

There's something about time, here. Time drains down into the pain, along with my shivers and whimper and stifled sobs, and my fear of what will happen if I scream. As much as I want it to end…

I never want anyone to know.

But it's more and more, it's like a broom, like pain, so much pain, and I'm pushed so hard against the wall I can't move. I want to throw up. Stop, stop, just stop—

I wake up panting.

The sheets are soaked through with sweat. I try to whimper, but my mouth is full. Something tastes thick and wet and coppery, and after a moment I realize that it is blood from the knuckles of my left hand. Carefully, I open my mouth and removes my hand.

"Uuu…"

I make a tiny noise as I flex the digits. They hurt. They hurt, but they're bleeding, and I'm here and it's over.

I push back the covers, throw my legs over the side of the bed, and stand, unsteady, with my hand clutched to my chest. My legs tremble, like I've been running for miles.

In the bathroom I rinse my hands and dry it, then wrap Band-Aids around each of my knuckles.

While I'm doing this, I'm aware of a hot pressure, then a second later—

"No."

I clamp my thighs together and make it to the toilet. My underwear are a bit wet in one spot, but mostly okay. It's not too bad.

Not too bad, I'm seventeen and I'm having nightmares and I'm pissing myself, and—

I have to stop myself from thinking before I cry.

_Collins_

I came out to my parents when I was fourteen. One of the first questions my mother asked me was, _"But don't you want to have children?"_

The question caught me off guard; I explained to her that no, I really was not thinking about babies at this point, maybe I would adopt but it wasn't a chief concern, and surely one of my sisters would make a grandbaby for her, so what was the problem?

"Collins?"

What I really want to do is roll over and go back to sleep. My muscles are lethargic; I don't want to move. It's too much effort. I open my eyes. "Yeah, Roger?" At least he had the decency to leave the light off.

The next thing Roger says is, "Sorry I woke you."

I laugh. "No, you're not," I say. "If you were, you wouldn't've done it. What's going on?"

"Um… can I sleep in your bed?"

Every time I think of my mother objecting to my "choice" to be gay and thus childless, I smile. Roger's about as close to infantile as they come.

"You still wetting the bed?"

I can hear his blush. "No," he says. It's not completely true, and we both know that.

"If you piss in my bed I'll kick your ass."

"I won't." A whine creeps into his voice. I don't answer. "What about the floor? Could I sleep on the floor?"

Jeez. I wouldn't let him sleep on the floor if he begged me. I scoot back. "You can sleep in the bed."

"Thanks."

Roger crawls under the covers. In probably ten seconds he's settled against me and deepened his breathing. He is not asleep, but his body relaxes.

It has been too long since I had a man, that this makes me feel relaxed, but it's nice at the end of the day. In the same way it's nice to have someone waiting for you to come home, waiting to hug you and actually listen to you bitch about your day, it's nice to have someone beside you in bed, even if it's only for comfort. It is a mutual comfort.

I hug Roger. He does not object.

_Mark_

The trouble with working at the bar is a manifold sin, a temptation I just don't need right now, summed up in one word: Maureen.

The barmaid with the tiny apron—she has added a tack of squiggly gold ribbon at the seams—squeezes past me without saying excuse me. She leans down to pour the beers and I can see her tits. She doesn't wear a bra. She flips her hair and swings her hips and probably earns ten times what I make in tips.

"The problem with Tyler," she whines to me, "is that he wants _commitment_ and _emotion_, and it was okay at first, but all the time… it's like a puppy!"

He sounds like Roger. Roger needs time, he need devotion. Roger needs attention and validation, and—

_What am I thinking!?_

Maureen passes the beer over the bar and gives the fellow a wink. "Here we are, love."

To me, she says, "I just need a fuck." She pulls a bag of prawn-cocktail crisps off the rack and says, with a wink, "I'll be out back."

The way she swings her hips, I know what Maureen is inviting me to do to her, and I won't pretend I don't want to do it. I force myself to stay behind the bar. I force myself to fill another beer, pass it over the bar, to take the glass from Table 4, to not jump the guy who pinches my ass.

I need a fuck, too.

_No. No, it's not Roger's fault. He's trying. _

_He's trying, but I – need – sex!_

I shake my head. It just isn't an option.

Maureen returns after about a quarter hour. Bullets of sweat are plummeting across my ribs and out from under my arms; I've been servicing the entire bar. Did she imagine we would both slag off?

I like this job. I like having money left over after the rent is paid.

I like getting away from Roger once in a while.

I do, I love Roger but I like having a break from him and his neediness and grasping. Every few hours I do need to get out of the house, and a job is the perfect excuse.

Reason.

It's past midnight when I climb the stairs up to the loft, barely able to keep my eyes open. I reek of booze; hopefully Roger won't mind. Hopefully Roger won't wake up.

Hopefully tonight he'll be nothing but the warm body lying next to me.

I pull off my shoes as quietly as possible, unwind my scarf and shrug out of my coat. Then I tiptoe into the next room and crawl carefully onto the bed. If one thing is certain to wake Roger, it's having me jump on top of him.

_What the…?_

Roger's gone.

"Fuck!"

I never should have taken that job.

I jump out of bed.

I never should have left him alone.

The first place I check is the bathroom, the tub, where Roger has not, thank God, slit his wrists. The pills have been hidden—nice thinking, Collins.

He's not in the kitchen, he's not in the spare room.

By now the loft is completely illuminated, except Collins' room, and I haven't found Roger. My eyes hurt from being kept open and my chest aches because I don't know where my suicidal boyfriend is.

I give up and push open Collins' door. He always knows what to do. He can—

I freeze. There's Roger, cuddled up to Collins, asleep in his arms, in his bed.

"Fuck you."

The words slither out before I have a chance to think. Fucking fuck you, Roger Davis, you little whore.

I shut the door and head across the loft to bed, wondering how the hell Collins could do this to me. He's supposed to be my friend! Friends don't fuck their friends' boyfriends!

And Roger? These past few weeks, I haven't touched him—well, since finding out. I haven't pressured him, I haven't even asked him to let me stay in the room while he changes clothes. No, I've completely looked after myself, and then the little shit goes and has sex with… with…

What if he got himself HIV?! Does he imagine I'll stick by him through that, too? Through AIDS and suicide and rape? How does so much badness happen to one person without he somehow invites it?

I get up. I take Roger's clothes out of the drawer. His shirts, his socks, his jeans, his sweaters all piled up on the bed, then I take the clothes and throw them out into the loft. From now on, Roger Davis can stay the fuck out of my life.

To be continued!

Reviews would be appreciated... please?


	14. Formulating a Plan

Notes: I have a much clearer picture of where this story is going now, so things should be moving much more directly. Concerning the court scene, it's mostly based on when I did mock trial. Concerning what lawyers can get away with in court, they can get away with whatever they're not called on-- and that's not what a leading question is.

Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson

**Friday**

_morning _

_Mark_

There are certain things I will never again be stupid enough to do.

I will never again, for one, be stupid enough to darken my goatee. I did it once, in high school, when I was a pirate for Halloween, and I had the misfortune to think using my sister's mascara was a _good_ idea, since it was available and I wouldn't use much. And of course she had waterproof mascara, and of course she was furious with me for touching her belongings, and of course I tried to get the black goop out with alcohol.

I doubt Dad even would have noticed, except that someone at school noticed the sent of liquor and I earned myself a suspension.

I will never again eat at a Vietnamese restaurant. Maybe that's being racist, but I prefer to call it taste aversion—nice little term from my high school psychology course.

I will never again attempt to sear tuna fish.

And I will never again, I swear as I peel my aching body off the mattress, work in a bar, as it seems the fumes alone intoxicated me to the point that I am, in fact, hung over this morning.

Just getting up sends my head swimming. I moan. Maybe Roger will take pity and make me hangover food.

Does Roger even know what hangover food _is_? He's probably too young. I guess I can explain it to him, or Collins, if he's home.

I didn't even get undressed last night, just fell into bed in my corduroys and sweater. While I'm fishing for a fresh set of clothes, I notice that there are barely any clothes in the drawer. _Better get to the laundromat before the laundry pile eats us._

I dress and wander out into the main room of the loft, our communal kitchen/eating area/lounging around space. A pile of clothes is stacked on the floor, and a bottle of Jack Daniel's is on the table.

_Oh. Fuck._

And it all comes screaming back to me. The previous evening, my almost indiscretion, Roger in bed with Collins…

My headache is worse.

I force myself to take a deep breath, to focus on what's going on, on what is here and now.

Collins is sitting at the table, dragging a spoon through a bowl of soup to make little spirals.

"Hey," I say. He watches me. I sit down. _What's going on?_ Of course I'm expecting fallout. I'm expecting shouting. I'm expecting reason. I'm expecting… well, any number of things, but not Collins' angry glower. "Is Roger…?" and I nod in the direction of the bedroom.

"No."

"Oh."

We're supposed to be fighting over a boy, right?

I guess it's sad to realize, and it's a sad fact, but outside of Collins, I haven't many friends. Any friends. I have Maureen, the temptress at work, and I had Roger, but now it's become a matter of me and Collins and what's between us, and that what being "Roger" just won't work.

"Hey, it's his choice, right?" Maybe we can stay on decent terms.

Collins asks, "What?"

"Roger," I say. "It's his choice, who he wants to be with."

For a few seconds, Collins stares at me. I wait. "You think _he_ is leaving _you_?" Collins asks.

I spit, "Well he fucked you, didn't he?"

"Are you… Mark…" Collins stammers, then he pauses, takes a deep breath, and demands, "Are you out of your God damned mind?"

I physically recoil. "What?"

Collins stares at me, furious. "Or are you just that selfish?"

That crosses a line. Yes, I am upset and yes, I do look out for myself, but that's not to say that I don't or won't or can't care about anyone else. Of course I care. If I didn't care about Roger, how could it hurt so much?

"I saw him in bed with you!"

"Yeah! Because he woke me up last night, practically in tears, what was I supposed to say? 'No, Roger, I _won't_ comfort you, go off and snuff your candle'?"

I frown. "What… I don't know that expression, snuffing your candle."

"Killing yourself."

Now it's my turn to glare angrily. "He's not doing that anymore." It happened once. Roger made a mistake, he knows that, there's no point in harping on it.

Collins just shakes his head. He's disappointed. I struggle to maintain my anger. Something about Collins' disappointment makes me want to apologize, even if I have done nothing wrong. "You think the fact that he failed to kill himself has made Roger feel better?" he asks. "Mark, Roger recognizes how vulnerable he is, so do I. Frankly I don't give a shit what you think, because I'd rather see you miserable than let Roger kill himself."

_What?_ Collins is supposed to be my friend! "He's over-reacting." Real friends don't abandon one another for teenage drama queens.

"Over-reacting."

"Yes."

Collins stares at me in utter disbelief. "Do you care about Roger, or not?"

Is he purposely trying to insult me? "What?" Does he imagine I share my bed with Roger, and hold him at night, and fuck him, and kiss him, and care _nothing_ for him? As though Roger is nothing more than a cheap whore!

"It's a simple question, Mark. I want to know if care about Roger, because if you don't…" Collins shakes his head.

"If I don't, what?" I ask. Collins makes that sound like a threat, and I don't like that.

"Then leave him," Collins said, "because you're making this worse than it already is."

I walk out of the loft without another word.

_afternoon _

_Collins_

The truth is, I'm guilty.

I knew Roger was going to try to suicide himself. I knew probably before he knew. I saw the signs, and I took what precautions I saw fit: I moved the sharper knives out of the kitchen, so that if he meant to slit his wrists it would be a time-consuming, hacking attempt. Neither I nor Mark used a straight razor, Mark because he was clumsy in the mornings and me because I wouldn't risk the cuts, my blood being what it was. I bought ipecac in case he took pills.

Against drowning and hanging, I did nothing, only kept an eye on Roger and tried to avoid biting my nails to the quick when he was out of my sight. No one wants a friend to die, especially not under such circumstances.

I took so many precautions, I thought, and yet I failed. I expected every day to come home and find a hysterical message or note from Mark—_We're in the hospital. Roger's had an accident._—but it never came. I would stand at the door, blinking to re-orient myself.

When did it happen? Why, when I stood right by. I knew what was going to happen, and I let it happen.

Looking back, I was a fool. Oh, I took into account the eventuality, but it was _never_ an eventuality. It was going to happen, Roger was going to make that attempt, and I knew it. I did nothing to stop it.

Maybe it wasn't going to happen.

No, that's stupid. It might not happen, but still, no harm in sitting the kid down for a talk, right? But I didn't, and if my only excuse is uncertainty, I have precious little excuse to make.

Maybe he needed it to happen.

That makes a bit more sense. Roger tends towards the dramatic. He would never take his own life for flair; no, that's not his style. He would do it because he believed, quite certainly in that undeniable soul-like place inside him, that he was better off dead.

Why not? Roger took a beating when he moved in with us. Mark wasn't what Roger had hoped, but going back to his mom was out of the question. But even then, he had school for routine, and soccer for love.

Now what does Roger have? He has Mark, who failed him. He has nightmares of something no one should ever experience. He has his mother who comes around every few nights to check up on him and touch his hair and not understand. And he has me, and I think I've shown just what sort of friend I am.

_Stop it._

It doesn't do any good to harp on the negatives and failures, especially not one my day off.

I figured, oversleep two classes, it's as good as illness.

The moment the rain begins to pound, I know Mark will return home as soon as he can. He's useless with mechanics, wouldn't dare risk his camera being ruined. So I do what I have to. I put the kettle on. I start preparing myself for the conversation.

When he comes through the door, Mark glances at me, pauses, then heads for his bedroom.

"Mark."

He pauses. "Collins." Mark sighs. "I'm not in the mood." He starts for the bedroom again.

"I'm sorry."

"What?"

I don't know if Mark misheard, doesn't believe it, or just wants to make me say it again. I suspect the last, and I indulge it. "I'm sorry, Mark. I crossed a line earlier and I'm sorry."

Mark nods. "Well… thanks for saying so."

"Will you sit down?" I ask. "We should talk. Tea?" Another glorious gift from Roger's mother, who actually believed he had developed an affinity for tea the last few months he lived with her.

The way he watches me as he sits at the table, it's as though Mark thinks I'll bite him—and, more importantly, that I'll give him rabies. It's not so funny when I think about what I _could_ give him, in any manner of innocent accidents.

"I'm worried about Roger."

"I care about him," Mark snaps. "I care about Roger just as much—"

"I know," I say, trying to cool him down. "I know, Mark. That's why I'm talking to you, because you care about him and I know you want to help him. I'm just not sure if you know how."

Mark doesn't say a word. I don't blame him. I wouldn't want to admit that I don't know how to help my boyfriend, not when he's halfway between offing himself and just not getting up in the morning.

I continue, "I was thinking it might help him to talk about it, or at least have the chance to talk about it, in an environment that doesn't involve thirty strangers."

But the real question is, can Mark handle that? There are things Roger whispered to me last night, that were painful enough for me that all I could do was hold him tighter, phrases like "rectal tearing" and "inflammation" hinting at pains we never knew he felt. He told me how long it lasted, and how many of them there were.

And even though Roger told me the details, of what they did to him and what they did to each other, he didn't get to the heart of the problem. He didn't begin to tell me what he was feeling, and there's not much chance of that happening now. And now he won't tell me. If the boy only felt safe enough to speak in the dark, so he didn't have to see my reaction, and in bed, held, and to me…

There's no chance now of recreating those circumstances. Roger didn't wake me this morning, but I have a fair guess at what happened, since by the time I did get up, all of his clothes were folded into neat piles and set out of the way. He knows what Mark thought.

So I will never again be that close with Roger.

"You want me to talk to him?"

"Unless you can think of a way he'd trust me like that again, without thinking you've kicked him out."

Mark's eyes go cold, and I know I've made a mistake. "He still wants to kill himself," I add hurriedly. "Mark, he still doesn't know what to do. He's lost everything, and he had some problems to begin with."

"So what should I do?"

I shake my head. "I don't know." He's signed out of school, and honestly I wish I had insisted he stay. At least when he moved in, he had classes and he had soccer. "Could you get him a job at the bar?"

"He's seventeen."

"Washing dishes?"

Mark bites his lip. He nods. "I'll see. I just started there but I'll see."

"All right. Well that's _something_, at least. And it wouldn't hurt to be affectionate… like really affectionate. And Mark… thank you. I know this isn't exactly easy for you and I appreciate your making the effort."

It's then, with Mark staring at me and me wishing, somehow, that I had made him see, that the door slides open and in walks Roger, damp and dripping. He shakes himself and pulls off his wet sweater, trudges into the bathroom and hangs it in the shower to dry.

I give Mark a Look. He stands and goes to the bathroom door. "Roger?"

"Yeah?"

"Hey, baby."

Roger steps up and kisses Mark's cheek. "Hey."

Roger starts to move away, but Mark reaches out and touches his cheek, and Roger stops. I've got to admit, the boy knows what he's up to. "How was your day?"

"Fine." Mark stares. "Oh. Yours?"

"Fine."

Roger heads past Mark and walks into the 'kitchen'. "Anyone got a preference on dinner?" he asks. He suggests pasta.

I know what'll happen tonight when Mark asks Roger if he would maybe like to talk about what happened. It's over. We had a window, we didn't use it.

That's the problem with people, they change. You make a plan for an open, loving child, who happens to have been mistreated. And over the course of a single day, he's closed his heart.

To be continued


	15. Almost Like it was Before

Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson

**Saturday**

_morning _

_Roger_

I wake up sated.

Mark has his arms around me, one hand on the back of my head keeping my nose pressed into his chest hair. He smells nice. Mark smells the way a man _ought_ to smell, musky and sweaty and vaguely like soap.

Wrapped in his arms and cradled to his chest, I find that everything is a bit lumpy and warm under the covers to the point that I'm not sure which bits are Mark and which bits are me. Well not _that_ bit, his is bigger and hairier and cut. But our bodies themselves are inextricable from one another.

I snuggle closer.

"Mm… five more minutes, baby," Mark complains. It's almost like it was before.

I feel comfortable here. I feel warm and good… but hungry. I didn't have much for dinner last night, and as much as I would love to stay here with Mark, watching the peachfuzz shadow of a beard grow on his chin…

I shift, trying to pull away without waking him. Mark holds me back. His grip tightens, and I'm pinned against him and I _can't move_… and it's like being in the locker room again and pushed up against the wall and they won't let me go and I tear away from him and slam my body against the wall, leap over Mark and…

I'm standing in the middle of the room, panting, my terror fading, but by now Mark is sitting up and reaching for his glasses. "What happened?" he asks. "Roger—"

Mark begins to stand, but I push him down. I'm gentle, but I push. Mark doesn't control me. I can control him. He _does not_ pin me, and he needs to understand that.

Once Mark has settled again on the mattress, I say, "How about breakfast in bed?" I smile, and I make my eyes shine. _Nothing's wrong. Don't let him know._

"Okay."

"Great." I peck his cheek. "Don't move."

In the kitchen, I crack a couple of eggs and scramble them in the pan while the bread's in the toaster, and I am silently thankful for my mother's decision to shop for us. Oh, I know why she did, and it was for her as much as for us. I've seen the Weight Watchers magazines stuffed up on top of the fridge. Still, I appreciate it, and I appreciate it even more when I'm spreading butter and jam on toast, and piling a hot breakfast onto a plate for me and Mark.

Back in the bedroom, he's still sitting in the bed, reading. "Hey, scoot." Mark does. I settle on the bed and set the plate on his lap. "Breakfast."

Mark smiles at me. It's not a real smile. "Thanks, baby."

Then it's nothing but the sound of tines against a plastic plate, and quiet chewing. I manage half a piece of toast and a couple bites of egg, and if Mark notices, I don't know, but I don't have any appetite.

He cleans the plate.

"That was great, Roger."

I smile. All this smiling is beginning to hurt. I pick up the plate and begin to stand, but Mark rests two fingers on my wrist. "Roger… stay. Come and stay with me, okay?"

When did it become a request? When did we go from Mark pulling me onto the bed and kissing me, to him begging for a few quiet moments?

I climb into bed and do what I can to make it comfortable. I rest my head by Mark's shoulder and play idly with the hair on his chest. And still I am extremely aware of his fuzz, where my chest is smooth to the happy trail. I force my fingers to move slowly. They don't like it, but they do as they're told.

Mark reaches over me and rests a hand on my back, careful and slow. "That's okay," I murmur.

"I love you, baby."

"Love you, too. Hey, Mark?"

"Hm?"

I think of what it was like when I used to think about my dad, and miss him, or my brother, and wish I could talk about what happened in Los Angeles and Cedar City and in Tacoma and Oberlin and the move to New York. I think of what it was like to wake up, tense and shaking from the dreams of memory, and be totally unable to communicate with Mark, because he never seemed to care.

"Tell me something about your childhood."

"My childhood?" he asks. "Okay. Umm. I always wanted a dog."

"Aaw. Did you ever have one?"

"Nope."

"Oh." _Well, that went well._ Maybe the reason Mark never asks me about my childhood, is that he doesn't want to talk about his own. "Well… um… what about later?" I ask. "How did you choose Brown?"

It's the first thing that comes to mind.

And Mark tells me about his financial aid package, and how he was actually happy in high school, with his group of friends and his doting mother and hopeful teachers. The only true problem was the father he fought with night and day, but otherwise things were peachy.

I bite my lip. "That sounds fantastic." I blink back tears. "So, you still talk to any of your friends from high school?"

Mark admits, "No. You know, I should look them up. We used to have so much fun. We'd go out for pizza on Fridays after newsletter meetings and then usually hang out at Mara Trout's." He laughs. "Trout. Poor Mara."

I cannot bring myself to speak.

"Roger? I'm not boring you, am I?"

A tear drips down my cheek. I can't help it. But it's my own damn fault for being stupid enough to ask him about high school. "No, no." I raise my head, brush away the tear and kiss Mark's cheek. "I'm listening, love. You were saying that poor girl was called Trout?"

"Yeah." Mark smiles, then he turns to me and his expression falls. "Roger?" Mark pulls back. He touches my cheek. "What's wrong?"

I shake my head gently. "Nothing." Only that I can't listen to him talk about how great high school was for him, with what it was for me.

"I'm sorry, baby." Mark hugs me. "We… we can talk about something else, or just lie here, or—"

"Wait," I interrupt. I climb out of bed and snap off the light, plunging the room into darkness, then I hurry back to the safety and warmth of Mark's embrace.

Our conversation is quiet, then, and rambling, until it disintegrates into yawns and snickers, and we fall quiet.

Just before I fall asleep, Mark asks:

"What did they do to you?"

And I can say, quite frankly, "They raped me."

**Sunday**

_morning _

_Collins _

"'Morning, Meredith. Hang on, let me throw you down the keys."

I climb out onto the fire escape, and the cold air wraps me in a tight embrace. I've never found it to be a slapping sort of thing, though the wind can be so sharp it brittles the skin to the point that it feels like breaking, feels broken. Snow crunches under my boots.

"Meredith!"

She is a lone figure on the streets, and it is one of the few times Alphabet City could be pretty without being a romanticized beauty, since it's nothing but snow. And I have to give Meredith credit. She's more than unaccustomed to an area like this and more than uncomfortable, but she keeps coming here to take care of her son.

She catches the keys and I watch until I'm sure she's in the building safely, then hurry inside myself. I don't mind the cold, but I don't see any reason to stand out in it.

The loft door slides open a minute later. "Hey, Mer." I embrace her, and she returns the gesture. It took her ages to manage it.

"Good morning, Thomas. Where's…?"

I grin. "The kids're asleep." Mark and Roger managed to get up for about four hours last night, then returned to bed. Meredith had a shopping bag in one hand and a stack of newspapers piled under the opposite arm. "What's with the news? Republicans running for office again?"

She grimaces. "I only wish." Meredith sets the groceries on the table, then tosses down the newspapers—some legitimate, some tabloids. "He's in them," she says, "every one."

"You mean…?"

"Yep."

"Christ." I shake my head. I'm scared. Every day I'm scared it will happen again, Roger will take another bottle of pills, hack with a knife, fall asleep in a lukewarm bath. And as if it weren't enough… "'Locker Room Attack on Homosexual Student'. It's not even creative."

Meredith shrugs. "It's turning into a media circus," she says. "His school newspaper covered it without mentioning the actual incident; they mentioned travesties and encouraged students to report. The school is offering counseling, rape prevention… Democratic and Republican papers are both denouncing it and there's talk of harsher punishment for rapists. But none of this helps my son," she says. "Even if harsher punishments are implemented, they can't be applied to these… these despicable… these…"

I glance over the papers. A boy being sexually assaulted by his high school soccer team, yeah, it's bound to be reported, but how are we supposed to tell Roger that what should be his most private suffering is being blasted across the nation. How are we supposed to tell him about this?

And how the hell are papers reporting on this when it's still in trial?

Meredith sniffles. "I kept away the worst," she says. "The… there are… right-wing, Christian papers… saying he got what he had coming to him. Like he deserved this, like he brought it on himself. And how am I supposed to tell him that there are people out there who believe that?"

I shake my head. That's one mercy she's allowed. "You don't have to tell him, Meredith. He already knows that."

For a moment Meredith stands, a hand at her forehead shielding her eyes, then she nods. "All right," she says. "All right, well… when he gets up, we'll—I'll talk to him. I'll… I don't know. Until then, let's not worry about it. How are you, Thomas?"

Time to tune out, then. "Fine. I got another letter. Lesley, this time." I scoff. "Even if I could consider leaving, Cambridge?"

Meredith laughs. "Maybe if you hadn't made a point of refusing to return to your first three posts," she says, and I know it's true.

We talk about work, grading, how it's only March and it's freezing outside, and it's beautiful but we miss the summer when we could complain about the heat and wish for snow. We laugh at how old we sound.

Roger wakes up around eight o'clock. "'Morning," he mumbles, and heads directly for the coffee pot. Meredith and I fall silent. We watch him. We watch him drink, and we wrong him, because then Roger knows. His eyes are just opening when he looks from me to his mother, wipes his mouth on his wrist and says, "What?"

The papers are lying on the table, and with Roger's eyes darting around, looking for something out of place, it's only a matter of time before he notices.

_Student Sex Offenders _

_School Safety? Not in These Locker Rooms! _

_Local Boy Raped by Soccer Team_

"Roger…" I step forward, thinking maybe I can say something. Meredith can't. She's frozen, watching Roger, one hand over her mouth. She can't move or speak or help him.

Roger stares at the headlines. His hand begins to shake, but he doesn't notice until coffee sloshes onto his foot. Then he sets the mug on the table. Roger squeezes his eyes shut and trembles.

"Roger." I touch his shoulder, and it's enough to spur him into action.

Roger shakes his head. "I'm goin' back to bed," he murmurs. "Good morning. Sorry, Mom."

Meredith has gone by the time Mark wanders out. He takes the news somewhat better than Roger did, nodding gravely and saying nothing. And we carry on.

It's so _wrong_ how we do this, how when Roger isn't here he may be on our minds, but we carry on with our lives. He can't. It's a tragedy, but we nod with the same detachment we would feel reading of a total stranger victimized in the same fashion. We shut ourselves off, just enough that it doesn't hurt, just enough that we can turn our emotions on again when he comes into the room.

Forgive us, Roger, but we're human, too.

At around noon, there are noises like a tortured hamster in Mark's bedroom. He's on the couch, reading bits of newspaper that don't mention Roger.

"You wanna…?" and I jerk my head towards the bedroom.

Mark shakes his head.

"Mark."

"All right."

He sets down his newspaper and heads towards the bedroom. Mark knocks on the door to his own bedroom before entering. At least he has some respect of privacy. "Roger?" he calls.

"Just—just a minute!" Roger stammers.

"Roger, baby, no, I want to come in."

Roger disagrees: "Mark, it won't take me half a moment."

Mark frowns. I see his lips move as he silently counts to five, then he announces, "Roger, I'm coming in now." He opens the door, his expression half angry and half worried, and freezes when he sees Roger standing by the bed, stripping off the soaked sheets. Mark's jaw drops in shock. Roger blushes beat red.

Facts can't decrease his shame in this moment, but the truth is that Roger's response is purely biological, and furthermore not irregular. I know, it can't help him now, when all he has his feeling and shame and his body betraying him, and the hot tears on his cheeks.

It's a perfectly normal biological response.

"I'm sorry, Mark," Roger whispers. He's had another accident.

To be continued

reviews would be great... constructive criticism is preferred over flames, though


	16. Dreams

Disclaimer: RENT is Jonathan Larson's

**Monday**

_evening _

_Roger_

I'm sitting on the couch, and I am proud of myself. Today I actually did something. I didn't just get up and go to court—well, I did, but I also stopped by a community college. It helped that I didn't end up testifying today—they didn't need me.

I walked into the college and tried not to blush too horribly, but it felt nothing like high school.

I grabbed a course catalog and tried to light out, but someone caught me, and even if I didn't trust her huge smile, she seemed pleasant enough. She filled me in on financial aid and fee waivers, even gave me some forms to fill out.

They're sitting on the table, and I should get to them, but right now I'm busy looking through the college course catalog. I've been through it once before, and still everything seems exciting.

They don't offer seven foreign languages in high school.

They don't offer welding.

They don't offer specialized biology courses.

Maybe dropping out of high school won't be the worst thing that ever happened to me, with these prospects. I might never leave community college, there's so much to learn and so many classes to take, I may just stay there for ever until I've learned everything.

I grin, thinking about it, and my eyelids begin to droop. It's going to be great.

"Roger?" Mark asks. He rests a hand on my arm, another of the little touches he's been trying. "You ready to go to bed?"

He doesn't have to ask me that. I'm tired and my eyes itch, but I force them open and mumble, "Just let me finish this next page…"

Mark squeezes my hand. "Come to bed, baby?"

"'Kay."

I use the bathroom before stumbling to the bedroom, practically asleep already. Mark is in bed, curled up under the covers, but he stretches out to accommodate me. I climb over him, careful not to tread on him in the process, and slip under the covers between Mark and the wall.

He exhales loudly. "You're freezing."

"I know!" The shivers set in now that, engulfed in warmth, I realize how cold it is. I cuddle up to Mark. He grabs my left hand and rubs some warmth into it. "Mmm," I let him know I appreciate that. I close my eyes and nuzzle into him. I reach an arm across him and hold him, even though the truth is that Mark's got his arm around me and he's holding me and I'm just resting an arm around him.

"Good night, Roger."

Mark was perfect yesterday, after the accident. After I pissed in his bed, when I was crying softly and so ashamed of myself I was about ready to die. He told me to go get cleaned up myself and he would take care of the bedroom, an offer I appreciated though I didn't let him. At least he didn't yell or say how disgusting and degrading and degenerate this is, pissing in the bed at my age.

"'Night, Mark."

True to form, I was totally useless, just cried and tried to take care of everything myself.

It's one of those nights of deep sleep and no dreams, where one moment my eyes are open and I'm wondering if maybe I should kiss Mark, just a small kiss, just to say goodnight. And then suddenly my mouth is dry and my eyes ache and my head spins, and it's dark and I've been asleep for two hours.

What wakes me, is Mark. He pushes back the blanket and swings his legs over the side of the bed. His fingers clutch at the covers.

"Mark?" I sit up, rubbing my eyes, and scoot closer to him. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Mark shakes his head. His voice is too tense and, looking down, I see why.

Mark had a dream which, if it was a movie, it would be rated to keep me out. "Oh." I reach into his lap and wrap my fingers around his erection.

"You don't have to do that." The sentence is like one big exhalation, one huge effort of breathing. "It's okay."

I'm still his boyfriend.

"Let me." I release him and slip my fingers inside his boxers for a better grip.

I'm still good for something. Maybe not much, but I'm not useless, and Mark's breathing grows rapid and shallow quite swiftly under my attentions. He sighs. His fingers twist the sheets, and he says my name.

We get no further. I do my best, and for a while I succeed, rubbing Mark in ways that used to make him happy, but I can't get him to come, and after a while it seems pointless to prolong an erection when there's no sex and no orgasm coming, and the prolonging is not completely working, either. But I'm not about to just stop. This is not a conditional attention, based on Mark's response; no, as long as he wants it and seems to even vaguely enjoy, I will continue.

Mark nudges me. "Roger, stop," he says, his voice on the verge of snapping.

"I'm sorry!"

I thought he wanted it! I didn't mean… I thought he…

"Not your fault." Mark scoots under the covers again. I do, too.

I don't turn away from Mark. I wouldn't do that. But I can't bring myself to approach him again. I thought he wanted it. That's the only reason I carried on, I thought it was what Mark wanted. If I had known otherwise, I wouldn't have touched him at all.

I curl into myself, disgusted. How could I do that? How could I… I should know better… why didn't I stop?

He didn't ask me to stop.

I thought he wanted it! I honestly believed that Mark wanted it, that's the only reason…

What's wrong with me? Why is it all I seem to do is make things worse! Yesterday's accident, and now this…

"Roger, you okay, baby?" Mark murmurs.

"Mmhmm."

"Okay."

I wish he would touch me. I wish he would make some vague gesture that this is okay, we're okay, he isn't angry… but it seems he is, or at least not affectionate. I close my eyes.

_Sleep._

And it's cold.

To be continued!

I know this wasn't much of a chapter; bear with me. There will be plenty of drama in the next few chapters.

Reviews would be appreciated... please?


	17. Collins Loses his Temper

Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson. I'm just borrowing his characters.

**Tuesday**

_evening _

_Mark_

Trudging up the stairs to the loft, I ask myself, _Why am I still doing this?_

When I dropped out of college, my parents thought I was insane, or going through a late rebellious phase, or goading them. Dad tried everything – reasoning with me, promising to set up a job for me right out of college, offering to send me to Europe for two weeks one summer, threatening to beat me or disown me. But I refused to budge from my chosen path, pursuing art and truth.

Now my mother helps pay my rent, and Roger's mother helps us keep food in the loft. We're such pathetic losers. The only true Bohemian among us is Collins.

I'm a failure.

The reminder pounds into me with each step.

I'm.

a.

failure.

I'm.

a.

failure.

I'm.

a—

As I fumble with the keys, cold metal slipping against my fingers, I hear laughter from within. Collins says something I can't make out, and Roger squeals with laughter.

Jealousy stabs through my gut. When was the last time I made him so happy? Or he, me? When was the last time Roger and I laughed together? And I can't remember, honestly, Roger and I ever being as easy as he is with Collins. Maybe Roger belongs with Collins.

_Stop it._ Roger and Collins started off poorly—I _know_ that. I remember Roger slipping out of the loft the moment Collins arrived, months – was it only months? – ago, when we were beginning our relationship. Roger hated –no, he didn't hate Collins. He feared him.

I slide open the door. Roger and Collins are sitting at the table on opposite sides of a pile of papers, and they both look… happy. I've just spent the evening trying not to stare at Maureen's ass, trying not to think about that piece and that _I could hit that_… and I come home to this? I come home to watch their eye contact, their glee at something I am not a part of.

"Hey," I say, trying not to be cold. I toss my bag on the couch.

"Oh, hey, Mark." Roger stands. He watches me, hesitates, then hugs me, gently. He butterfly-kisses my cheek. "How are you?" he asks me quietly.

Why does he treat me like spun glass?

And why did I go hard for Maureen? And why did she have to notice?

"I'm fine." I'm colder than I intend to be, and they both hear it. Normally I could touch his hand and kiss him and it would be all right, but… "I'm just, um, I'm going to grab something to eat."

Roger offers, "I could make you something if you want."

"That's all right, Roger."

"He's looking for an excuse," Collins says, "not to finish grading the tests."

"No'm'not," Roger replies quickly. He sits down again and picks up the stack of tests he was grading. "I don't think you should count these," he says.

"Why?"

"Um. 'Cause then you'd have to see the results," Roger says, and he chuckles weakly. I turn on one of the burners to the stove and toss a piece of bread on the grating. We don't have a toaster.

"That bad, huh?" Collins asks. He shakes his head. "I've gotta, I don't know, start pistol-whipping these guys or _something_."

Roger neatens the stack. "All right," he says. I flip the bread and stick my fingers in my mouth. "They're done. I can enter the grades tomorrow, if…"

"Roger, you don't have to ask my permission. Dork," Collins adds, but he doesn't mean it. He hardly seems to be saying it for any reason but to just _say_ it, doesn't mean it but wants someone else to hear it—someone like me.

Roger stands. "Then good night. 'Night, Mark," he calls.

_You're not going to stay up to speak with me? You've talked to Collins all day, but you can't spare me half an hour?_

Then I see Roger's face. His eyes are barely open. His mouth is slackened. And yet… he's aware.

"Okay," I say. "Good night. I'll be in in just a minute."

Roger smiles and heads off into the bedroom. I turn off the burner and grab my toast. It's hot and juggles between my hands before I manage a bite. Collins is watching me.

"What?" Why does he always think I've done something wrong?

Collins stands. "C'mon." He jerks his head towards the fire escape. I follow him out into the night. The air is cold and crisp; Collins idly scoops up a handful of snow and packs it into a snowball. I cup my hands around my toast, breaking it to release steam, and it warms my soft palms.

"Collins?" I ask after a moment.

He pulls his arm back and hurls the snowball at a streetlight, broken long ago by hooligans with rocks. "Mark." He turns to me. "Roger's a handful. I _know_ that. But Mark, he's trying. Roger wants you to be happy."

"So what's your point, Collins?" And why are you mucking about with my life? Contrary to what he believes, Collins is not omniscient. Not everything is his business, either.

"My point," Collins says, "is that you've got something good with him." He begins to form another snowball, and the set of his gaze tells me that he has a target in mind. "Roger _loves_ you, Mark."

The toast has gone cold in my hands. "Collins." Do you not realize that we are standing out here, in the freezing cold, that I am shivering and want nothing more than to go inside and get into my warm bed with my boyfriend? "Is this going anywhere?"

The snowball explodes at my feet. "Thousands of people wish every day that they had what you had. It's a gift, Mark, a caring, devoted lover who would do anything to ensure your happiness, even sacrifice his own. And you don't give a shit. You don't realize how luck you are. Anyone can get fucked, and you know it. _Mark._ Don't do this to Roger. He's trying. You're not."

I sigh. Not trying? If I wasn't trying, I would have boned Maureen at least three times by now. "What do you know?" I turn to go, but Collins catches my sleeve. I spin, furious. Who is he to treat me like this? He wouldn't do this to Roger! "Is that it?" I snap. "Do you love him?"

"What?"

"Roger! You love him! You're jealous that I have him—"

Collins shakes his head. He chuckles. "You really are that selfish, aren't you, Mark?" he asks. "Deep down, that's all you are. Yeah, I love Roger. I love him more than anything, but not the way you should. And that's not what this is about! Yeah, I'm jealous, Mark. I'm jealous of what you have with him. You have someone who loves you, a good someone, someone you can live the rest of your life with. But you're too big a coward to love him. You… do you realize, Mark, that you were talking about Maureen yesterday? You were standing at the sink, shaving, and talking about her."

I was? Shit. I must have been tired… "She's a friend."

"She is _not_. You know what, Mark? You don't deserve Roger. You don't deserve that constancy. And I… I just…" Collins shakes his head. "I can't watch you not appreciate what you have, and do nothing!" With that he shoves past me and goes inside.

I take a deep breath and exhale a slow cloud, then follow. Collins doesn't know what he's talking about, and that's that.

Roger has back to me and his hand on Collins' shoulder. "What's wrong?" he asks quietly, and that's the first thing I hear when I climb back into the apartment.

Collins shakes his head. "It's nothing," he says. "Don't worry about it." He glances at Roger, who stands trembling in an old T-shirt and a pair of my boxers. "Go back to bed, Roger. You're practically seizing."

Roger throws his arms around Collins' shoulders and hugs him tightly. Collins hugs back. "Good night." And I wonder why Roger took care of Collins before he took care of me.

I step into the apartment. "Mark." And then I know, because the moment he sees my face Roger walks over and cups a hand against the back of my neck. I shiver. He's warm. "What's going on?" Roger asks. "What's wrong?"

_Collins is in love with you. _

_I don't deserve you. _

_You're not happy, and I can't make you happy, and I want to. _

_I'm having sexual feelings for someone else. Someone female. _

"It's nothing." Why should he know? Roger doesn't need to suffer through this with me. He has enough on his mind.

"You can tell me," he says.

I kiss his lips. There's something appealing in their boyishness. I just lean forward and take that kiss, and then I realize that I didn't ask his permission, and he's shaking. I pull back. "I'm sorry."

"You can kiss me," Roger says quietly, looking out the window over my shoulder.

"Roger—" Don't lie to me. Don't, please don't, relinquish control of your body. It was taken, you didn't deserve that. He stands before me, and I watch his hand fly away from his side. "Roger, baby…" I pull him into an embrace. Roger gasps and trembles against me. "Let's get you to bed, okay? You're freezing."

_I do so deserve Roger. See? SEE?! I do what I can! _

In the bedroom, Roger climbs into bed and huddles under the sheets. I listen to his shivers from the darkness as I change into my pajamas. He sounds like he's crying.

I crawl under the covers beside him, and he's freezing and shaking, but I don't dare touch him. "Roger, why don't you wear something more?" I ask him. "You're so cold."

"I know," Roger says, "but, I like being able to feel you."

I bite my lip. He rolls over and faces me, but he doesn't cuddle close, as he used to. "Would you…"

Yes.

"What?"

His request comes as barely a whisper: "Hold me."

"Roger…" I scoot closer and pull his body against mine. Roger nestles down, his head tucked under my chin. "Of course I'll hold you," I say, and I kiss his hair. His shivers ease. "Is that better?" I ask.

Roger nods. "Thank you."

"Roger, do you…" It's dark. It's just the two of us, safe and warm under a pile of blankets, just him and me and I'll keep him safe. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He shakes his head. "No. Uh, unless you want me to."

"Not until you're ready." And in the meanwhile, I'll just keep my issues, and my ego, and my libido, to myself.

I don't think I'll sleep the night, but Collins was right about one thing. The steady rhythm of Roger's breath against my chest and the gentle motion of each inhalation and exhalation lulls me to a deep slumber.

To be continued.

Reviews would be great. Please?


	18. Verdict

Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson

**Wednesday **

_early morning _

_Roger_

I wake up in a cold sweat and I'm tangled and I can't get free and—

I kick off the blankets. My feet are free now, but I feel no better, wet and cold and hot and frantic. I press back against the wall and draw close my knees, struggling to breathe.

It hurts, hurts, hurts and I don't know where.

I'm shaking, every breath a whimpery, elongate h sound. I clutch at my elbows as the caps of my knees press my chest, pressing out the air, and I gasp and whimper.

I barely remember the dream anymore. Already it's gone, and I'm here, terrified, on the brink of tears and biting my lip because _you can't cry, Mark doesn't like it, he doesn't, don't, you can't…_

Mark's asleep. Can I climb over him? Maybe I can get to the bathroom without waking him. I could wake Collins, but that would be a bother and there's no call to that. And Collins would never tell me to shove off, which makes me wonder if he means it. And then I might not wake him, I'm sure I could curl up at the foot of his bed and he wouldn't know the difference, but Mark…

"No." The word bubbles out. Even if I could wake Mark, I wouldn't. I wouldn't. He tries. There's no reason to bother him, not when he tries. Mark has tried. He's gone without—without sex, that is, and it's been a somber home.

He needs, deserves his rest.

And there's no reason, no reason at all that I should not be able to manage this alone, on my own. I'm seventeen years old. I'm practically an adult. There's no reason at all, no good reason, for me to wake up with nightmares, to wake up everyone else.

But then it's just me and the dark, and the dark is pressing in and reaching around me and I can't breathe, I can't, I

I press my cheek against the wall and manage a few deep breaths to ground me here.

The sentence will be handed out today. Today I'll know how long they're behind bars.

But these memories won't go away, and even as I huddle closer against the wall I can feel the nails digging into my arm. I can feel the breath on my neck, I can _hear_ them I can _feel_ them—

"Stop." It's more spit than sound, and I struggle and scrabble at the wall and wish it would stop, but it won't, and I kick out—

My heel hits something soft and yielding, something that groans.

"Wha… Mark?" I rub my eyes and try to focus.

Mark sits up in the darkness. "Jesus, Roger." Nice talk from a Jew. Mark gasps.

"I… I'm sorry," I stammer, my voice reedy thin and high, squeezed out of my throat. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to."

"Roger… what's wrong?" Mark reaches out to touch me, and I'm so wrapped up in my dreams I can't help but stiffen. He notices and withdraws his hand.

I want him to touch me. It's Mark and he's here and I want him to touch me, I want him to be gentle, but now he can't because I had to go and flinch. _Idiot._ Why did I do that?

"Did you have another one of your dreams?" he asks, and I hear the sheets shushing as his hand swipes across the fabric. It's dry.

I nod. "I'm s-sorry I woke you—"

"No, Roger." Mark takes my hand and, as I allow this, pets it. "It's okay. You don't have to be alone…" I can't stop trembling, I'm so cold. "You're cold," Mark observes. "Roger? Do you want to lie down under the covers with me? Or… we could turn on the lights. Do you want some water or something?"

"I…" I think of how hard Mark has tried. He's been good to me. He holds me when I ask. He forgives me for wetting his sheets with urine, not that I mean to. Mark's been trying, and what have I done for him?

I wriggle back under the covers. My muscles ache from the exertion of remaining tense. The warmth and closeness relaxes me, and almost immediately the fears recede. "I'm sorry I woke you."

Mark rubs his eyes. "S'okay," he murmurs.

"Mark?"

"Hm, baby?" he mutters, barely intelligible.

"D… d'you want me to sing you to sleep?" It's all I can think of to do. I can't give him what he'd prefer—an orgasm—but I _do_ love him and I do what I can. That's this.

"Don't 'aveta do that," he mumbles.

I pull Mark close and stroke his hair. "Edelweiss, edelweiss…" It never was the appropriate song for my voice, but it's all that comes to mind, and it succeeds to lull Mark back to sleep. His breathing does the same for me.

_afternoon _

_Mark _

I'll be home when Roger gets back.

That's what I tell myself, that when Roger comes back from the courthouse today, and it should be his last day, I'll be home. I can't see how he'll be anything short of devastated. How can any sentence make up for what was done to him?

Still, I can't deny that he's recovering remarkably. Okay, I haven't had sex in… a long time… and that's a problem, and yes Roger has nightmares and accidents, but outside of that he seems better. He doesn't need a hug every couple seconds.

I sling my bag over my shoulder. I'll just be out for a couple of hours. My latest screenplay has been a block and a half, and it always helps me to get out of the house. Maybe I can write in the park, if the weather holds.

I glance up at the sky. The clouds are low, and they're dark. It'll be a cold night. I smile, thinking of my cuddly teddy bear.

_What?!_

I've never been in a relationship before where I would compare my significant other to a teddy bear. There was Nanette, back in high school; she never stayed in the bed with me. We would screw in my bed, then she would sit up, edges of peachy breasts and dark thatch just visible as she lit a cigarette.

But usually, it was just a quickie at school or temple.

In college… Jamie. The only thing worth mentioning about Jamie is that he introduced me to Collins, though when Roger asked me I merely said that Collins and I met at Brown. I outlasted him there. Jamie outlasted me.

Then there was Maurice, a lot of shouting, a lot of things thrown across rooms. We never exactly broke up. I just walked out one day and didn't look back.

Roger's not what I expected. I didn't expect the cuddling and the kisses and the gentleness. And that's how it snuck up on me that I would attach to him so sappy a name as 'teddy bear'. I suppose it could be considered more a metaphor.

I'm sitting on a bench in the park before I've even realized that I left the loft. It's cold. Hunkered in my warm coat, droplets of moisture collecting on my scarf, I look around me.

It's snowy.

Clouds hang above me.

Maybe I wouldn't write anything today. Maybe I could just sit back and watch folk pass me by.

Very few do.

In the end it's a flake landing on my cheek that drives me inside, away from the nipping cold and fluttering snow. It'll be a flurry soon, and I bow my head and hurry home with my fists in my pockets.

It's not until I pull the door shut behind me that I think of Roger. He's never been on his own in the winter before, not really, and he wasn't born into it. On top of that, he's depressed. The last thing he needs is to get caught out in this.

I almost turn around and head to the courthouse to meet him. But then, no. I'll just grab his scarf. He didn't take it this morning.

Or I could wait at home, where it's warm, and cuddle him when he gets in…

I open the door to the loft, and am spared a choice between selflessness and comfort. Roger sits at the table, clutching a spoon in one hand and a stale bit of bread in the other. He has a bowl in front of him.

"Hey, Mark," Roger says, then jams the spoon in his mouth.

I drop my bag on the couch and hug Roger from behind. "Hey, baby." I kiss his hair. "How did it go today?" His bowl contained a colorful stew which didn't smell half bad. My stomach churned gently.

Roger shook his head. "Collins said nothing would've been enough," he said. "And he's right." My stomach rumbled. Roger tilted his head upwards to face me. "There's stew on the stove if you wanna grab a bowl."

I do as he suggests and spoon some of the thick stuff into a chipped bowl. Collins comes in from his room, he sits at the table and slides a book to Roger. I join them.

Roger's staring into his bowl.

"Nothing would have been enough," Collins says. "You know that, Roger. Nothing could have been enough."

He glances up, and his eyes are wet. "I'm not sadistic, Collins," he says, "but it's not justice."

"It's not about justice, not for you," Collins says.

"Collins," I say. How can he say that? Who the hell tells a rape victim, _you don't deserve justice_?

Collins shakes his head. "If punishments were doled out by emotion, by what the judges want to do, any sadistic creep could rule the city. That's why we have the laws. What the judges have to see is the crimes committed against society, the harm done to society."

So Roger doesn't matter? I cannot believe my own ears. In case Roger's hearing this, too, and his stricken look tells me he is, I reach out and give his hand a squeeze.

"I thought you were an anarchist," I tell Collins.

"That's _why_ I'm an anarchist. In part, anyway."

Roger eats. He won't look at us.

"At least they're locked up for now," Collins says, "if only for now."

"I don't care," Roger murmurs. "I want them dead. I'm sorry." Roger glances at Collins, then at me, for about half a second each, then he says, "I'm just glad it's over."

But it's not over, is it? Roger's not going to the court anymore, that's true, but he's not really ready to continue with his life.

I bite my lip, trying to think of anything that might suffice to make up for even my feelings on what happened to Roger. What was done to him, that is. I don't think it would help if they were killed. I don't think it would help if they were locked up for ever.

The truth is, I don't think anything done to them would help. It can't undo what they did. They raped Roger. He'll have to outlive that.

But do I want them back on the streets? Well, they're not, they're in prison. That's good enough for me.

I look at Roger, who can't look up and has stopped eating, just trawls his spoon through his stew.

No retribution against them would bring him back. That's all I care about. So I don't care about the outcome of the trial. I just want Roger better.

To be continued


	19. Good Night

Disclaimer: RENT and its characters are Jonathan Larson's

_night _

_Mark _

It's so damn cold, I get in bed fully dressed and change under the covers. Roger hangs back against the wall, watching me, and the moment I slump down, pajama'd, he squirms forward and latches himself onto my side.

"Baby."

I wrap an arm around Roger and nuzzle close to his hair. He washes with bar soap that smells like peppermint. Roger's shaking from the cold; I am too, though not so much.

"Are you okay?" I touch the backs of my knuckles to his forehead like my mother did when I was young. He's got to be sick to tremble like this, but I don't feel any fever.

"It's, it's just cold," Roger murmurs. "If you mind—" and he starts to pull away.

"No!" Reflexively I tighten my grip. "Roger, you're freezing."

He doesn't say a word, just lowers his head and pressed up against me. His shivers generate heat, and in moments I'm able to relax. Roger keeps shivering, and I wonder if his blood never thickened. He spent a few years on the west coast, perhaps his blood is still as thin as water.

As his shivers ease and become a sort of gentle rhythm, Roger cuddles up against me so that I can feel as he moves, especially… especially…

_No._ No, oh no, not now. This is just perfectly awful time for it, but the motion from the shivering, combined with the closeness, combined with… well… hormones…

"Mark?"

Shit. He can feel it. "Um." I begin to disentangle myself from him. "I'll take care of it."

"Wait." Roger grabs my hand. His grip is steady: at least he's stopped shivering. "Do you… do you want me?" He says it as though the question is incomplete, leaving me to expect more.

What can I say? You're off limits, baby. It's like using the Statue of David as a dildo. No matter if that's all you could think when they took your sixth grade class, no matter if you've never been able to shake that particular fantasy, you just can't and that's the end of it.

"Of course I want you, Roger, but if you're not… ready yet…"

"Maybe…" Roger's tongue shoots out, lizard quick, and licks his very chapped lips. "Maybe there's a middle ground."

A middle ground, between touching me and not? "What do you mean?"

"You… like porn, right?"

And suddenly I understand what Roger's thinking. I open my mouth to protest, but then I truly consider it. There's an air of worship to pornography, a portrayal of a body as perfect, an untouchable temple, and maybe that is how Roger needs to think of himself.

Before I can think of anything to say, he's pushed down the covers and begun taking his shirt off. He takes off his shirt and his underwear, and Roger is sitting on my bed, completely naked, and my throat has gone so tight if I speak I'll sound like a castrati. I furtively switch on the lamp, not taking my eyes off him.

I've missed this. I've missed seeing him like this, beautiful, and knowing I cannot touch him is an exquisite ache.

I swallow. Barely. Roger knows what I like, and I know he's not about to do… certain things… but he does lean back and slip one hand down to rest on his thigh.

He does it so easily, driving me mad. With this longing, this lust, and this knowing that I can't have him. I want to touch myself, but even more I want to touch _him._ I want to thrust my head down between his legs and—

But that's out of the question. I slide my fingers under the waistband of my boxers, watching Roger, watching his body, and then my eyes find his, and I stop.

Roger looks away. Tears wet his eyes, though he trembles not to cry them, and he's shivering again, this time from more than just the cold. My gut wrenches.

I wanted him, but I didn't want _this_.

Without a word, I gather one of our blankets. Roger had the good sense to bring some. I remember when he moved in, making one trip solely for the purpose of blankets. He brought the quilt off his bed, two spare blankets and a flannel sleeping bag, all of which have kept us nicely warm.

The one I grab first is a fleecy thing, dark blue with stars and moons on it—Roger's. I wrap it around his shoulders and, hardly daring, touch my lips to his cheek.

"Warm up under the covers," I say. "I'll get you something to wear."

I don't rejoin him under the covers until he's dressed in old sweats. Roger has turned to the wall and curled tightly against it, still shivering, still not—or not just—at the cold.

Turns out, most people see porn stars as objects.

"I'm sorry," and it's that tiny whimper that reminds me, I asked him for nothing. "I'm sorry, Mark, I thought I could, I…"

"It's all right, Roger." I wish I could touch him. I want to hug him.

"I just wanted to do something for you."

"It's all right," I whisper into the darkness, lying with my head on the pillow not far from him, only inches, yet so very carefully not touching. "It was just… just a little too fast for you, is all." And I should have known better than to let him. I should have remembered the day I brought home a porno.

_"Mark, I don't want to watch that." _

_"Come on. Just give it a try. You'll be surprised. Come on, Roger." At my coaxing, he settled down beside me. I set the film to play. _

_A quarter of an hour later, I was more than ready to jump onto Roger and screw him silly. That is, until I had a look at his face. Roger was pale. He stared intensely at his fingers and his shoulders were curled inwards. _

_"What's wrong? Didn't you like it?"_

_Very slowly, Roger shook his head. "I don't want to do it with you," he said. "Not like that, anyway." And I didn't understand, then, what he meant, since we had done everything depicted in that film. _

Now I begin, very gently, to rub circles on his back. "It's all right," I soothe.

"Mark, I'm sorry," Roger says. His voice is muffled: his hands cover his face.

"You don't have to be sorry, baby." I search through my mind for anything helpful to say, anything wise anyone has ever said to me. Collins would know what to say… but I never give anyone a chance to comfort me. I can't stand the debt. Can't stand the weakness.

Roger can't think of anything to say, but he very slowly relaxes and eventually takes his shirt off. He's still wearing sweatpants, but his back is bare under my hand and it feels good, my skin against his. Roger practically purrs. I can hear his eyes drooping shut.

"Mark?" Roger asks quietly when I almost think he's asleep.

I kiss the nape of his neck. "What is it, Roger?"

"Do you think I'm…" he pauses to search for the word, "flamboyant?"

It almost makes me laugh. Roger, flamboyant? The boy's barely human, as Collins would say. "No, baby, you're not flamboyant. Nor am I." Nor is anyone we know, though we don't know many people. I begin to pick at small knots in his hair. "Is this about the trial?"

"Mhm," he whispers.

Bastards. They'd never dare insinuate such a thing about a woman. No, no, towards a woman such behavior would be unthinkable. Her trauma would be recognized. But apparently it's perfectly acceptable to say about a seventeen-year-old boy.

"It wasn't your fault," I say. "It was completely and utterly wrong, and not your fault in any way, Roger."

"I goaded them, Mark. I shoved Michael Evans—"

What stupid ideas he's been given! "Then Michael Evans had the right to shove you back," I say. "He could've fought you. But he had no right to… to… t' violate you like that."

Roger keeps his further whimpered concerns low, though I hear the beginnings or protestation every few moments. Then he says, "I love snow. Mark?"

I'm half asleep. "'M listening, baby."

"I'm sorry I haven't been… haven't behaved like a proper boyfriend lately. I'm sorry, I—"

"Hey," I interrupt, partly because he's getting worked up and partly because he shouldn't feel like this. "It's all right, Roger. You're barely able to function as a human, and right now I'm happy just to make sure you're all right. That every time you go sleep, you'll wake up again. So let's just forget about anything beyond intimacy until you're fully well, hm?" I conclude, giving him a gentle squeeze.

Roger rolls over and, very quickly, presses his lips to mine. It's not much of a kiss; in fact it's clumsy and strange and his tongue flicks out against my teeth, but it reminds me that I am the first person he ever kissed. I think of the shy virgin Roger was when I met him and feel myself falling in love all over again.

"I love you," he murmurs, and he falls asleep a minute later.

I do the same, feeling horribly guilty.

I don't ask Roger for sex or views, and content myself with cuddles and kisses, and that's how things remain for the next few weeks.

_To be continued_

I must be mad, it's half past four and I'm out of my warm bed to finish this beast!

Reviews would be fantastically appreciated... please?


	20. Love Forever

Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson

**Monday: Six Weeks Later **

_afternoon _

_Collins _

I am miserable. It's rainy, buckets of sickly slush, icy rain pissing down, and trust me to forget my coat so that I'm running through this horrid, godawful, inappropriate-for-spring weather and swearing at myself for being so stupid and at my students' papers for being so heavy and the weather for being so pissy.

It shouldn't be raining in spring. It's early May, and I expected the clouds to blow over. Instead they've spent the better part of the afternoon puking on New York City.

Normally, I like rain. The city smells so clean afterwards, which is rare enough in New York. And unlike snow, it's not freeze-your-balls-off cold.

Normally I don't dash through the rain without a coat. My shirt is wet and chafing, and my mood sinks lower and lower. By the time I climb the stairs to the loft, I'm angry enough to kick a few stairs on my way up.

A sufficient vocabulary renders "immature impatience" truly "catharsis."

I slide the door open and slam it closed again. Only after that do I see Roger. He stands by the couch, wringing his hands and staring at me.

"Hi," he says. He lacks inflection. "What's wrong?"

I knew he scared easy, but I never thought to see him scared of _me_.

I shake my head. "It's just the weather," I say, keeping my voice as soft as possible. "It's fine."

Roger nods. "Okay," he says.

I change into dry clothes and decide that… I hate grading papers. I do. It's horrible. It's boring. If I could, I would grade only by discussions and class participation. A test might do for a midterm, and a paper for a final. How fantastic _that_ would be…

I settle on the couch with a stack of essays.

Roger sits next to me. I glance up at him and he gives a tight smile. A moment later, I'm grading again and he shifts closer. He waits a moment, then shifts closer again.

All right, I'm sorry for frightening him, but whatever game Roger's playing, I am _not_ in the mood. He can play by himself.

I finish the first essay and grit my teeth. Andrew Matthews' essay is next. Every time I grade one of his papers, I resist the urge to rip up the paper, or tear out my hair, or scribble rudely, _why do you do this to me, Andrew? Why, boy?! _

Roger pokes me in the side, breaking my concentration.

_Bad Roger._

He does it again, and I have to smother giggles. This time I let him see my smile as I jab my elbow in the general direction of his ribs. Roger retaliates with full-out tickling, his arm threaded beneath my elbow, and I can't swallow laughter this time.

"Roger, cut it out!" but I'm laughing so hard this has precious little impact. "Roger…"

He's laughing, too, pleased with himself.

"Quit it!"

"Nope!"

"All right… you're askin' for it, imp!"

Roger squeals laughter, clearly not believing what I've told him. I hug him with one arm across his chest. He tries to wriggle free, but he's still laughing, joking, and he's more ticklish than I am, I discover. Roger laughs and bucks, trying to pull free and failing.

"Stop it!" he squeaks between giggles. I listen to his tone, just to be sure, completely sure, that he's enjoying this. It's play.

"No way."

"Co-o-o-ollinssss!" Roger whines. He kicks at the cushions.

"Say 'mercy'!"

"No! Eeee! Stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it!"

He nearly slips free by sliding, but fails at the last moment. His fighting grows weaker as he begins to pant. "Give up?" I ask.

"Nuh…"

And that's when the door slides open.

What Mark sees is Roger lying half on the couch and half on me, his shirt hiked up, and my hand is actually on his belly, where he is ticklish, but I somehow believe Mark sees something else. He thinks my hand is a few inches lower, especially since Roger and I immediately move away from one another.

"You… you…" Mark stammers.

_Mark_

I don't stay. Why should? Two months, over two months I haven't laid one finger on him, not to touch or kiss or hug or even squeeze his hand without asking his permission, with words or looks but _asking_, worrying I might somehow violate his personal space.

I slam the bed room door and throw down my bag.

What the…

I don't know what to do, I don't know what to say.

_How could he do that to me?! _

I clutch my head in my hands. Roger was supposed to love me, Roger was supposed to me MINE! God dammit all, were those just _lies_?!

When did he get over it, then? That business of Roger as a poor, traumatized rape victim, was it all a farce?

I want to scream, but instead I walk. I walk from the bed to the door to the bed to the door to the bed…

Under the bed, half peeking out at me, is a book. It's small, a worn paperback. It's a cheap book bound with staples, a red cover with two lines around it. The printing is cheap, bumping off the page, and smeared in some places.

I pick up the book and rip it. I try to rip off the back half, but it doesn't come off, there are too many pages, though the paper is old and thin. I tear in chunks, pages and pages fluttering to the floor, until it's nothing but scraps carpeting the world around me.

_A Midsummer Night's Dream_.

I wish this was a dream.

I sink onto the bed, onto the pillows, wishing this was a dream and wishing I couldn't smell Roger's sweat and soap in the sheets.

"Mark?"

The door opens, and Roger steps into the room slowly. "Are you all right?" he asks.

"Go away," I croak.

Roger insists. "Can we talk?" he asks.

No. Talk's overrated. I don't want to talk to him, I want him to go away now and not to come back.

"Mark, we were just playing."

"Sure."

"I lo—what's this?" Roger stops. I hear a whisper. "Y... you…" Curious, I look up. The paper is trembling in his hand, a page of his book. Roger stares at me. His eyes are damp. There's something in his gaze that I don't understand.

Roger turns and walks away. I hear Collins try to talk to him, and Roger mumbles something vaguely polite, then the door to the spare room closes.

It's about twenty minutes later that Collins comes in. He doesn't speak, at first. I'm sitting on the bed and he sits next to me.

"What?" I ask.

"You got anything to say to me?" he asks.

"No," I snarl.

"How about Roger?" he asks.

I shake my head. "Have him," I spit. "See if I care! See if I…" and then the tears begin bubbling.

It's the first time Collins has ever seen me begin not to cry and not hugged me and said it's okay. He says, "Don't, Mark, not yet. Don't, because if that's really what you think…" Collins pauses to shake his head. "Yes, I love Roger," he tells me. "But I don't love him as a lover. He's a sweet kid, and he cares about people. I love him the way I always tried to love you."

Always tried, he says, like he always tried and never could.

Collins picks up the red paper cover of the book I destroyed. "He overreacted," I mumble. "It's just a book. There's probably millions of copies in the world. It's Shakespeare."

Collins flips over the paper. On the other side are words written in neat black cursive. "'To Roger,'" he reads, "'on the occasion of his seventh birthday.'"

I shrug off the first twinges of guilt. "So, he and his mom are getting along, it'll be fine."

"'Love forever, Da,'" Collins concludes. He shows me the paper, as though I might have doubted him.

Shit.

That's when I start to cry, knowing what I've done. I begin to sob and my shoulders slump. For a moment, Collins just watches me sob and shudder, and only when I'm fairly hateful of myself does Collins hug me.

_To be continued... _

Muhaha! Like? Dislike? Reviews would be fantastic. Please review? pathetic author beg


	21. Just Say You're Sorry

Disclaimer: RENT is Jonathan Larson's

_night _

_Mark _

I can hear him sniffling almost-sobs in the next room. My hands clench empty air and I wish I had something for him. I wish I could hop home and grab my teddy bear from my mother's box of keepsakes, and offer him some comfort of my past.

I don't know where Roger's father is. His step-father isn't a bad man at all, but a step-father who marries your mother when you're already a teenager, well, that's not your dad. I never asked about Roger's father, because he never offered the information.

Is he back in Los Angeles, where Roger was born? Did he and Meredith divorce? Is Roger out to his dad?

I'm not out to mine.

But then, I hate my dad.

I knock softly. "Roger? I'm coming in, okay?"

He doesn't answer.

I step in, and in the dull glow, I see that Roger is hugging his knees to his chest. He's on his side, and he's quivering.

He spoke to me of his father, once, telling me that he had loved The Hobbit since he curled up on his father's lap at the age of four and begged for a story.

"Hey." It's a small room, without a real bed, but it's got a sort of futon that's usually up as a couch, since it fills the room to burst when it's out as a bed. There's little space for us both on the futon as is, but with Roger curled up so tight I can sit easily.

"You want to roll this out?" I ask. I rub his shoulder. "Then I can lie down with you."

Roger croaks, "I don't want you right now."

He doesn't mean. At least, I tell myself that's the anger talking. "I didn't know that book was so important to you, Roger." I did, actually. Of course I knew; he kept the book by the bed.

Roger curls tighter against the back of the futon. "Rog?" I ask. His arm is bare. I touch his shoulder again.

This time he sits up, his arms looped loosely around his knees. Roger stares at me. Curls of hair flop in front of his eyes. "I still need him," he says.

Need _him_? Roger needs a man, who's not me?

"_Who_?"

"My da."

"Oh, baby…" I reach out and tuck his hair behind one ear. "Do you want to call him?" Why didn't he before? I suppose it's long distance. I've got enough for him to use the payphone. Of course Roger can call his dad!

Roger's face scrunches up momentarily, as though he's about to cry. "My da's dead," he says.

"Oh, Roger." I pull him into a hug. I knew Roger missed his dad. I knew he had loved him. I didn't know his dad was dead. I didn't. Roger trembles in my arms, and I stroke his back to calm him. "When, Roger?" Each vertebra pushes against the skin of his back.

His voice is thick with sobs, though he's not crying. "Ten years ago."

Ten years?! Roger was only seven years old! Poor kid. My hug tightens, and then I remember the inscription in the book. _To Roger, on the occasion of his seventh birthday._

It's said you only hurt the ones you love.

"I kept hoping he'd come back," Roger whimpers. "He'd show up one day… or he'd call us…"

I rock him gently, back and forth. He hadn't much left of his father. He hadn't much left, and he held on ten years to a cheap booklet bought for a child likely to ruin it. He didn't, though. I did.

Roger trembles. He's not wearing anything but an undershirt and underwear, so it's no surprise he's freezing. It's been a sickly cold spring thus far.

"Please, baby, get under the covers and let me lie down with you."

"No!" Seeming to remember, Roger pushes me away. "I don't forgive you," he murmurs.

That stings deep in my chest. "Is there anything I can do to show that I'm sorry?" since he doesn't want my presence, I can't think of much else to offer.

Roger turns dull, almost-angry eyes to me and he says, "You might try apologizing."

And it's so simple, of course I overlooked it. I could kiss and hold and caress him much as I pleased, but until I said those simple words I was the man who took the last shred of his father and didn't even have the basic decency to regret it.

"I'm sorry, Roger."

He needs to hear it. I'm sorry. I am sorry. Even more I'm angry with myself. I took something I can't replace. I wronged something I can't make right. Just one more think has spiraled beyond my power and it's completely my fault.

When Roger says nothing, I turn to go, almost angry. This wouldn't have happened if he had opened up to me. If Roger had just trusted me enough to say, I don't know, _my dad's dead_ or _this book means the world to me_, I wouldn't have done it. I would never have hurt him if he hadn't let me.

I know, I know it isn't fair to blame him. That doesn't stop me doing it.

Something catches around my wrist. I glance down and it's Roger's fingers holding me in place, and he looks at me, imploring…

I kiss him. "If you pull out the bed, I'll go get some blankets."

"You'll stay?" Roger asks.

I nod. Later I'll wonder if Roger forgave me or lied because he needed me. For now I content myself to curl up with him and shiver ourselves to warmth under the covers.

"This blanket's so thin."

"We should have sex under it."

"What?"

Roger immediately backtracks. "Well not like… now… not really… but, you know how you're always saying there's nothing thinner than the walls in the loft, and you can hear everything? It was a joke, 'cause…"

I get it, and I laugh. "All right. Maybe in a few months, hm?"

"Yeah," Roger says.

The dream that night is dry, and for that at least I'm grateful.

_to be continued..._

things should be moving more quickly now, if my plan keeps. Reviews would be much appreciated...

happy Thanksgiving to anyone who celebrates it!


	22. Marketing and Employment

Disclaimer: It's Jonathan's

**Tuesday**

_Mark_

"Come with me," he said. "It'll be nice to do something together," he said, "spend some time out of the house—" and here he began to stammer and look away, so that after I pulled him close and kissed him because he's absolutely adorable when he does that, "as, as a, um, as a couple."

I knew even then that it was more about his nerves than he let on, but why say no? I enjoyed spending time with Roger, and though he had taken no pleasure from cooking lately the mere closeness of food seemed to revitalize him. It's the only time that broody, thoughtful expression leaves his face: when he's looking at food, deciding what to make. Then he even smiles.

Which brings us here, to the market. Roger is hunkered down inside his leather jacket, though the day is cool enough for shirtsleeves. I lace my fingers through his.

As we pass a display of vanilla—why vanilla? I wonder. Of all things, why vanilla? Usually these displays are cookies or juice boxes, impulse buy items.—as we pass the display, Roger tells me, "Over two-thirds of the world's vanilla comes from Madagascar."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Uh, their staple crop is rice, though, and people, a lot of people are employed guarding the rice."

"People steal rice?" I ask. If I was going to steal anything, I'd be sensible and make it something nice enough to give me a bit of a boost so I wouldn't need to steal again. But I guess if you're starving, rice makes more sense.

"Birds do."

"Oh." That makes sense. "Do you want to buy some vanilla?"

"Oh, no! It's ridiculously expensive."

About a week ago, Roger's mother decided she was going to care for her son whether he liked it or not. It's her money we're spending, much as that wounds his pride. Mine is all right since it isn't _my_ mother.

We pass the vanilla display.

Looking at the fresh produce, Roger tells me, "It's the most homesick I ever get, in the markets."

"Why?"

Roger shrugs. "Seasonal fruits," he says. "You don't get that in Los Angeles. There's just, fruit, all year. Not that I really remember," he adds, trying to shrug it off as unimportant.

"You're making that up," I jab, giving him an excuse to continue. Roger babbles about oranges and apples and coconuts and mangoes, while I steer around the produce. Even with money, we adhere to Bohemian living, admittedly more from habit than anything else.

"…raisins, though," Roger says, "I never got the hang of raisins. Some curries have raisins, I don't see the point."

I smile. "I don't like raisins, either." Overall, I think, the trip is going quite well – except that Roger hasn't left my side. "Roger, we didn't get any milk."

"We can get some later," he suggests.

"Or you could run and grab some now," I counter. Then, with a manipulative smile, "Please, baby?" and I squeeze his hand.

"Um," he says, as he always does when he's uncertain, "'kay."

A minute later he's at my side again, clinging to me, with his head down and his shoulders hunched. "Roger?" I ask. "Did something happen…?" Did something happen when you went to grab the milk? It's statistically improbable, and I already know the answer.

"No," he murmurs. "Nothing happened."

I wait until we're in the queue to pay, and Roger has returned to a semi-cheerful state, to say, "We didn't get bread."

"We have tortillas," Roger observes.

"When was the last time you had a peanut butter and jelly tortilla?"

"You don't like peanut butter."

"But you do."

Roger bites his lip. He knows what I want. "Okay," he mutters, and leaves to get the bread.

This time when Roger returns he's gone pale and his breathing is ragged. He puts the bread in the basket. I try to ask him questions, but he won't talk to me beyond nodding and shaking his head.

We take the subway home. Roger sits in a corner seat; I sit next to him and wrap my arms around him. "What's wrong, Roger?" I ask quietly, nuzzling his shoulder. "What happened?"

"I wanna go home," he murmurs. "Please, let's just go home. Please, Mark."

"We're going home," I tell him. It doesn't seem to help.

_Collins_

Another letter showed up in the mail today. Of course no mailman walks down the street and drops letters at the loft, but through the school I receive these letters.

They offer me a way out.

Before now, I never thought I'd leave. At first there was Mark, interesting enough of a guy, entertaining (especially when drunk), and, I believed, good, deep down. It's always nice to have a friend around. Even an angry, self-involved friend who suppresses emotion is a comfort, even when he is lying on the couch drooling and snoring and facing a hangover when he wakes up, is better than no one and eases the loneliness.

Then there's that. I figure New York City is probably more full of gay men than any city other than Los Angeles, so my chances of actually finding someone and ending my humiliating "single streak" (grad school. Yes, I, Thomas B. Collins, have been single since grad school. I probably masturbate more than Mark, and that boy's practically got his hand _glued_ to his—aaanyway!) are great in New York City.

Yeah, right. The problem with the gay guys in New York City is that they have _other_ gay guys in New York City, accessible gay guys who go to clubs instead of staying home grading term papers.

Then there was Roger. My interest in him began as concern for Mark. Roger was a liar, and I was not about to let him think that lying—to Mark, to me, to anyone—was something he could get away with.

But Roger's like the aftermath of a supernova. You touch him with the edge of a fingertip and you get sucked in. His problems, and his love, run deep. He asks for help, he wants to hug and cuddle, needs it.

And now? With what's happened to Roger now, I couldn't even think of leaving. Roger needed me, especially with Mark being such an ass.

Last night Mark destroyed something that meant the world to Roger. He destroyed it, and Roger wouldn't let me near him. And how should it feel, to be accused and rejected? I'm not a cheater, nor will I ever be.

I can't stay here. I can't. The truth is, as much as I tell myself that Mark acts like a jackass but he's good at heart, he makes life unbearable. The only reason I don't stay for extended office hours or some shitty excuse like that is Roger, and now he's too afraid to go near me, afraid of what Mark will do.

I can't watch this happen any longer, and I can't live with this any longer.

I pick up the telephone to express interest in the job offered. It's not until the third ring that I realize I don't even know where I'm courting an occupation.

To be continued!

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	23. Out of the Closet

Disclaimer: RENT is Jonathan Larson's.

**afternoon **

_Mark_

I give myself one final check, then step out of the bathroom and am greeted by the sight of an empty apartment. About half the grocery bags are left on the countertop, the rest folded and slid neatly into a stack for the days when natural heat won't keep us alive to morning and we light a fire.

Roger is not here. He should be, but he's not.

"Rog?" It's not like him to leave a job unfinished. Even in his manic stages, I've seen Roger jump from one project to the next, but he kept them all nearby, not dropping one but working four or five at the same time.

He's not in the main room. I check our bedroom. The bed isn't made up, but it's neat enough. The closet door is a bit ajar. Roger's books are piled on the floor.

Roger's not in the spare room or Collins' room. There is more space in the loft, but nothing we use. I check, anyway, peering into foreign and dusty spaces. The dust, lying undisturbed, tells me he isn't here.

I'm just about to begin putting away the groceries when I hear a small noise. I pause. After a moment it comes again, a strangled whimper, and this time I'm sure it came from our bedroom.

I check under the bed: Roger's not there. It almost makes me laugh to look. I'm sure he isn't under the rumpled mess of blankets but I check, anyway, tossing aside layer after layer. Roger's not there, and I hear the sound _again_. At least this time I am fairly certain of the source.

I ease open the closet door. Roger is on the closet floor. It's not a wide closet but he's managed to wedge himself into a corner, hands pressed over his face. He hugs himself and trembles.

I smile, despite Roger's state. I'm just so glad to have found him.

"Hey."

I kneel in front of him and reach out to stroke the sliver of cheek not hidden behind his fingers.

Roger's scream knocks me back. He tries to scramble away, but there's nowhere to go. Roger's hands scrabble at the floor and wall; his eyes dart back and forth. He's panting.

"Roger, it's okay!" I inch forward and stroke his face. He squeals. I keep petting him, his face and his hair. "Roger, it's all right, it's me. It's Mark. It's Mark."

He stops fighting. I continue petting, since that seems to help, as Roger slowly regains control of his breath and the pink in his cheeks recedes slightly. He looks up at me almost shyly. "…Mark?" he whispers.

I nod. "Just me, baby." My fingers slide across his cheek, and Roger continues watching me. His eyes shimmer. I smile at him. "You're okay."

Roger shakes his head, and my heart sinks. I said the wrong thing, and Roger seems to shrink away from me. "I'm sorry," he croaks.

"No, no, you didn't do anything wrong, Roger--"

"I didn't… I _tried_, Mark…"

I don't know what Roger's doing. I don't know what's wrong. I don't know how we got to this point, of him cowering in the back of the closet. I don't know why, but he behaved quite the same on the train. I assumed he would just put away groceries.

I was only in the bathroom for two minutes, probably less!

"Roger, what's going on? What happened at the market?"

"I'm sorry, Mark…"

I suppress a sigh. There will be no fetching answers out of him, not now leastaways.

"It's all right, Rog. I know you tried."

He nods. _I did._ Somehow I doubt he thinks that. He doesn't seem to be capable of more than a few phrases right now, and those phrases are "I tried" and "I'm sorry."

"Will you come outsi--"

"No!"

This time I do sigh. "Not _outside_, outside, Roger. Just… come with me. We'll finish putting away the groceries."

He whispers something I don't catch, but it sounds suspiciously like "leave me", and not ended by "alone".

"What was that?" I ask, a hint of sharpness in my voice, but he just shakes his head.

"No," Roger whispers. "I don't want to go outside."

"All right." I soften my tone, imagine I'm speaking to my sister's baby. I never spoke well to my sister's baby. Now I run my fingers through Roger's hair. "Will you come lie down on the bed?" Roger stiffens. "Please." _Please_, Roger. I'm at wits' end here, please, please, _please_ throw me a bone. "Just cuddle with me, Roger."

He watches me. I don't dare breathe as his eyes bore deep, deep holes into me, drilling through my soul, hurting me physically where I imagine I feel them. Then, too slowly, Roger nods. "Okay," he whispers.

"Okay!" I stand and offer my hand. Roger takes it. I pull him to his feet and lead him out of the closet.

We settle on the bed, Roger between me and the wall. Just like we're going to sleep for the night, though it's not yet three o'clock, Roger kicks off his jeans before curling up against me. It's May and admittedly early yet and a cool day, but not enough for this: Roger is shiver. He wraps his arms around me and shivers.

"Roger?"

"Yeah?" His voice confirms it.

"You cold?"

"J-just, a bit," Roger stammers. _Just a bit, my butt. He's freezing._ I stand—Roger whimpers. But I only grab another blanket to tuck around him. He watches me the entire time, his eyes fixed on me until I lay down with him again. Still he shivers.

I'll do him more good than another blanket.

I wait until Roger has stopped shivering. I'm petting his hair and feeling his body move with each breath, and I mean to ask, when he's ready to answer, _what happened today, Roger?_ But by the time he's stopped shivering, Roger's breathing deepens, and I know he'll soon be napping.

For a while, I lie with him. I'm not tired. My body pulses gently, relaxing, my breathing deepening to meet his. I just enjoy the closeness, the warmth of Roger against me, and the tranquility of lying with him.

But after a while peace becomes boredom, and the groceries need to be put away, anyway.

As I stand, I kick back the blankets. Roger shifts, trying to pull the warmth back even as he sleeps, but not before I catch a glimpse of what's under his shirt.

_Jesus Christ._

I remember my first concerns about Roger's weight. We were lying in his bed, before his parents knew about us, when they left him alone for the weekend. I was wore boxers. He wore sweats. Even then his hip bones were sharp and his belly dropped off like a mesa at the bottom of his ribcage.

_"Roger…_" I didn't know how to talk to him about something like this. I love you, but you're sick? _"Do you eat enough, baby?" _

His eyes met mine, sad, or hiding. _"Oh, yeah. It's just I do so much running, you know."_

But now it isn't a runner's thinness. Now Roger's flesh drips like candlewax, clinging, outlining each rib. Now the veins on his hands show as small bulges. Roger isn't thin anymore. He is emaciated.

I sigh. How long has it been since I sat down to a meal with him? How long have I simply assumed he's been eating?

Is this about the rape? Is this because of what they did to him? Or is this just something I never saw?

I don't know, but there's nothing to be done now. Now there's just groceries to be put away, and dinner to be made since it looks as though Roger will sleep for some time.

I tuck the blankets around him and slip out, leaving the door just slightly ajar. In case he wakes and needs me, I want to be sure I hear him and he hears me.

_To be continued!_

Next chapter: Roger's lack of hunger is explained, and a secret of Mark's is revealed.

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	24. Cuddling

Disclaimer: RENT is Jonathan Larson's

**night**

_Mark_

"I'll be glad when Roger's well again."

I glance up at Collins; he's sitting at the table eating Cheerios. "Yeah, me too." I look back at my notebook.

"I miss his cooking."

This time my gaze lingers. _That's_ what he thinks about? Cooking is foremost on Collins' mind? I bite my lip, then give up and snap, "Fuck you, Collins."

"What?" he asks, but he means why.

"You… yuh…" I stammer, then point to the bedroom. "Roger's in pain! He might never be normal again, he… he might be… traumatized, shy and never able to trust, to touch, and you… you… you're thinking about his cooking while he's lying in there suffering!"

Collins shakes his head. "No, he's not," he says.

"What?"

He points, and I turn. Roger stands next to the window, watching me. When he sees me, he smiles, then quickly looks at the floor. His fingers rub against a stick of white chalk. Lines rim the windows.

When did he wake up?

"H-hey, Roger."

Roger glances at me. He manages to hold his gaze steady as he nods, then he scurries to the door. Roger kneels to draw a line across the floor. He rises, bringing the chalk with him, and stands on tiptoe to carry the line across the door.

"Baby…?"

He finishes the line, connecting it, leaving a white ring around the door. And then he turns to look at me and gives a tight smile and a nod, then turns back into the bedroom.

I look at Collins. _What the fuck…?_

Something snaps. "Oh!" I hop over to the stove. "Roger, wait. Here." I dig up a few spoonfuls of dinner. "Eat something." He stares at me. "It's… it's macaroni and cheese." You _like_ macaroni and cheese. It's your favorite kind, the kind with spiral macaroni. "Come and sit down," I say, half-coaxing, half-warning him that he _will_ eat before he gets back in that bed.

Roger hesitates. He slides down onto the couch. I exhale a breath I hadn't known I was holding and join him. The bowl remains in my lap. Roger doesn't move to take it. He won't, even when I offer, just sits there, staring.

Have his eyes always been like this? Once, I think, I looked in them and saw only a deepness of emotion, a single, solitary feeling of love. Now it's a battle. Now it's fear and confusion and need and a weak, weak anger and betrayal.

I spoon some macaroni up and hold it out to him. "Come on, Roger."

"I'm not hungry," he tells his thighs.

"You need to eat." I inch the spoon nearer. Roger shakes his head. "Come on. Just take a bite." Roger says nothing, but he seems to soften, and I almost imagine my coaxing is helping. Trying to make my voice velvet smooth, I urge him, "Just one bite. It's good. Come on--"

Roger whimpers when the spoon touches his lips. I give it a little push, gentling it nearer, easing his lips apart, and he pulls back. Roger turns his head away.

I sigh and drop the spoon into the bowl. "Roger, _don't_. You have to eat something."

"I'm not hungry." His eyes dart to the bedroom door.

"Two bites." I throw it out, a sudden wager. Roger looks at me and the spit sucks out of my mouth. I try to summon it back, try to talk. "Two bites, Roger. Then you can go lie down…" I touch his arm. It takes every ounce of courage in my body, every hope that I'm not breaking the barrier and going too far. "You go lie down," I say, "and I'll come with you."

_You know I'd never let anything happen to you, baby. _

Except that I _did._ I did let something happen to him. Where was I, when this was happening? A tiny voice tells me that it's impossible. Of course I wasn't in the locker room, I had no business being there. Why did I _protect_ him? Would that have been too much?

Roger takes a bite. I feel him watching me as his jaw grinds the food up into tiny and tiny and tiny pieces. He grinds until it's not pieces, it's paste. And then, with a look of pain, he swallows.

I smile and bite down the urge to pat him on the head. Roger takes another painstakingly slow bite.

When he's finished, he won't look at me. He gets up and goes into the bedroom. I follow.

"Roger?"

He takes off his pants and jams them in the crack under the door, then gets in bed. And I follow. Maybe if I do enough of what he does…

Maybe if I follow long enough…

Maybe I'll understand. Even a little.

I curl up in bed, curl against the smooth warmth of Roger's back and run my fingers through his hair. It's pitch dark. "Hey."

"How was your day?" he asks.

"Mm." I think for a moment. Afternoon crowd isn't the same as nighttime, it's lighter mostly, and honestly I prefer the noise and action and busy nature of the evening shift pleases me much more. But working afternoons gives me nights with Roger, and nights are the worst.

I close my eyes and rest a cheek on his neck, remembering how Maureen tasted of curry and toothpaste.

"My day wasn't bad." An arm across Roger's body, and my fingers and his curl together. "Why aren't you eating, Roger?"

He mumbles something. All I catch is "saw me" and I guess at the rest.

"I know I saw you, but you only ate two bites and that's not enough."

"You said…"

"I know I did, but that won't keep you going. It was a good start." Roger seems to shrink even safe in my hold. "What is it? You can tell me," I coax.

"Don't like things in my mouth," Roger mutters.

"But _food_, Roger--"

"No," he whimpers. "_Nothing._"

I flex my fingers free of his and stroke his hair. Maureen's been doing things much longer than Roger. He's never rimmed me, but she…

"I thought you'd be angry," Roger whispers.

"What would I be angry about, lovely?"

"The things I did." His voice is so quiet I barely know he's speaking. "They were… bad. Wrong."

I coax him, "Tell me."

"They m-made me suck…"

He can't say it. I hold Roger tighter and rock him gently. _No…_ Not that. They couldn't, wouldn't. "It's all I can taste anymore," he says, quiet, too quiet. "Nothing goes in my mouth, it's like it never happened."

Only… it did happen. Gets us every time, that, but we can't escape it.

_To be continued..._

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	25. Collins' News

Disclaimer: It's Jonathan Larson's

**Wednesday **

**evening **

_Mark_

I don't know how anyone can cook like this and _not_ eat. There have been weeks, had been, before Roger, of nothing but tinned soups and Kraft. I would eat that. With him cooking, I'm surprised my pants still fit.

I watch Roger poke and pick and slither a shred of meat into his mouth. He chews and chews and chews and swallows then pokes more with his fork.

I'd feel better as it is if he ate off a plate, not out of a cup, but he's eating so I keep my mouth shut about that.

"This is good, Rog."

He shoots me a shy grin.

"No, I mean it. You can make this, like, whenever you want to."

The comment earns me another grin. I smile in return and Roger's grin lasts an extra couple of seconds before he ducks down.

The door slides open. _Enter Tom Collins, looking like he just got hit by a bus._

"Hey, Collins."

"I hate staff meetings."

I suppress a smirk. "Well someone's Mister Joyful this afternoon." Roger murmurs something semi-intelligible. I guess at his meaning. "Roger says dinner's over there," I translate with a vague wave. Roger nods.

Collins pauses. "You cook it?" he asks me.

"Nope."

"Okay." Collins grabs a plate. "Man, I'm gonna miss this stuff."

I roll my eyes. "It's not like there's a cow plague," I say. "Maybe if we continue heaping on praise, Roger will make it again." Roger gives a little shiver that's his version of laughter.

"Yeah, but I won't be here," Collins says casually. He takes a bite and chews as the implication of this statement hits us.

"A-a-a," Roger stammers. The stutter comes and goes. It helps, actually, though it makes intense conversations extremely frustrating, it helps me to know when he needs a hug. "D-did you… i-is it-t-the… A-AIDS?"

That's probably the worst I've ever heard him stammer. Tears gather in Roger's eyes. Myself, I only feel the beginnings of a numb flush.

Collins shakes his head. "No! No, no, it's not that." He keeps eating. How can he _eat?_ How can he make me think he's _dying_, make Roger think it, so casually? "I got a job offer, out in Cambridge." He shrugs. "I took it."

"You're leaving?" I ask stupidly.

"Yup."

"D-d-does it," Roger says, then hunches deeper within himself and shakes his head.

"When?" I ask.

"They want me there by the tenth. Twelfth, at the latest."

"B-but…"

I squeeze Roger's hand. That's less than two weeks away. Roger shakes his head and takes his hand away. "I'm g-g-going to b-bed," he says. "'Night, Mark." It's the longest speech I've heard him give all night, and with it Roger retreats. He pauses to give one final glance at Collins before shutting the bedroom door.

I look at Collins, then at the cup containing Roger's dinner. He has barely touched it. "How long will you be gone?" I don't want to be outwardly rude, though I would much rather dash into the bedroom and cuddle. Roger's upset.

It is awful how much I savor these traumas of his, but when Roger is upset, he wants to cuddle. Skin on skin, there's nothing better, no greater comfort, and I love how he needs me. Maybe I was useless to protect Roger, but I can keep him safe _now_.

Collins shrugs. "It depends," he says. "Summer and fall, at least. Maybe you better see how your boy's doing."

Roger is a lump on the bed. He has the lights off. I don't disturb the darkness, just undress as quietly as possible and slip beneath the covers.

Without a word, Roger cuddles up to me. He lays his head on my chest and stretches an arm over me. "Hey, Mark."

"Hey." I rest my hand on Roger's head. "You okay, Roger?"

"Mhm," Roger mumbles. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Roger? Do you ever think about…" I didn't used to worry. It used to be that I was out in the evenings and Collins was out during the day, so always _someone_ else was here, but without us… "Do you ever think anymore about killing yourself?"

Roger stiffens. "No," he says, and I breathe again. There's nothing to say in follow-up, and any subject change would be forced, so instead I stay perfectly still until we both fall asleep.

_To be continued..._

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	26. Stay

Disclaimer: It's Jonathan Larson's

**The Last Days **

_Collins _

I spend the two days after finals in my office, doing my last office hours at New York University. A few students drop by. One girl pokes her head in, says hello, and stammers too much for me to know exactly what she's saying, but I have as much of a conversation with her as I could muster. It's strange, she never shut her damn mouth in class, but now, she's like… well… Roger.

I never do learn what she wanted to say. As she leaves she says "thank you", then dashes out.

Travis Buckley says hello. He's gay.

Last comes a shy knock and Meredith Davis. She sits down without being asked. "You're leaving," she observes.

Word gets around.

"Yes."

"Does he know?"

I nod. "_Roger_ knows." She winces. "Meredith, if Roger wants me around, he can have me around." At that, she raises an eyebrow, but when I tell her everything, Meredith is sated. She stands to leave. "Meredith."

She pauses, turns. She doesn't forgive me. She isn't angry. She doesn't know what to think, and I think that this is a precursor to what I'll face with Roger.

"Goodbye."

I offer my hand. She hesitates, but in the end, she shakes.

I leave NYU. I haven't been there long enough to be missed, nor to miss it. As I walk off campus, I search for a feeling, but none arises. I'm leaving. It's as simple as that.

Things at home are slightly more complicated.

I don't start packing yet. Hell, I'm not leaving for a few days, why pretend? Why leave before I leave? There's a wrenching pain in ending what's not yet ready to die.

Roger barely looks at me. He has a habit of scampering off when I come into the room, and not emerging from the bedroom even when Mark arrives.

It's my second-to-last night in the loft, which suddenly feels so much bigger, and emptier. It's odd, that. The loft never felt too empty with Mark and Roger and me. It always felt like home. But the thing is, the loft _is_ empty. It's like how we have furniture, but it's all in these little masking-tape islands.

Usually, though, nothing felt lonely. There was me and Mark and Roger, and we were enough. We were enough until Roger wasn't enough for Mark. Things became an issue when Roger wasn't enough for Mark, when Mark began collecting every corner and drop of Roger from anyone else.

The rape was a blessing in disguise for Mark.

I roll over and hug myself. Roger needs Mark now, badly. Roger needs his boyfriend to hold him and listen to him and try to understand. Roger needs someone, and Mark needs to be needed, but the trouble is that Mark needs to be the only one who's needed.

And he's not enough.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

I don't like it here anymore.

"Roger?"

It's a faint whisper from across the loft—faint, and I can't really hear that, can I?

"You talk to Collins today?"

I _must_ be imagining this.

"I know." Still Mark talking. Roger's responses are mumbles. "You'll miss him, baby. And you won't be happy if you don't say goodbye." A pause. A mumble. "All right. Well, try tomorrow, okay?" Pause, mumble. "Yeah." Giggle.

I stuff my fingers into my ears. They could've waited to celebrate until I'd actually gone.

I bite my cheek. That was stupid. I don't think that. I'm not so foolishly juvenile.

Aw, who'm I kidding? Yes I am, dammit!

I chuckle and fall asleep.

I pack the next day, all my clothes into a worn bag, a half pack of cigarettes, some books, a lighter. It all goes so quickly that I upend the bag and pack it again. Once that's done I roll a handful of joints.

I'm considering repacking a second time when I hear a noise behind me. It's not much, a scuffle, but it's enough.

Roger stands there, leaning against the doorjamb, looking at me, then the floor, then me. Then he sniffles.

"Roger…" He looks bad. He's too pale. Dark circles ring his eyes, and his fingers twitch at his sides.

He looks at me. His lip is practically wobbling. I can't think of anything to say to the kid. _It'll be okay_? How will it, though? _You've got your Mark_? Ha! As though Mark's nearly enough.

And then there's what I planned to say, and that's the very last thing I can tell him, for no other reason than my own damned cowardice. I can't say a single thing, so I look at him, sigh, and hold out my arms.

You don't really hate me, do you, Roger?

He doesn't. In half a heartbeat Roger is pressed against my chest, holding me, sniffling. He whimpers, unable to think of anything to say, either.

"Shh." I get the easy job now. I stroke his hair. "It's all right."

Roger shakes his head. "No," he whines. "No, it's not."

"Yes, it is. You'll be all right."

"What's wrong?" he asks. "What is it? It'll be all right, we'll see it will, me and Mark. Whatever it is, we'll fix it, Collins."

"No." I'm sorry, Roger. "You can't."

"We can--"

"Roger, stand up." To my surprise, he does. Roger pulls back from me and stands on his own two feet. He's not crying, but I know he wants to. "I can't stay here anymore, Roger, not with Mark. This possessive thing… I can't watch him do that to you, and I can't let him do that to me. He used to be my friend and I'm hoping that can happen again."

"But then distance--"

"Is precisely what we need." Roger looks at me, his eyes wide, practically whimpering. I sigh. "It's not you, Roger. You know, if… if…" How can I say this? "Do you want to come?"

"Hm?"

"To Cambridge. Come with me, Roger. I have housing through the university. It'll be heated, and proper housing, not an industrial loft. You'd like it there." I'm lying. I have no idea if he would like it there or not. "You'd have access to the libraries and everything, and it'd be a chance to be with people your own age." And you'd be with me, and not with Mark. "I'd like it if you would." I'd like to have him around. I do like having him around.

Roger bites his lip. He looks at me, then at the floor. "Stay," he whispers.

"I can't."

"I want you to have this." He slips something onto my wrist. I can feel that it has sharp corners, but not too sharp. Looking down, I see a string of paper cranes, dunked in something thick to protect them, linked on a small, elastic string. "I made it a few years ago."

I'm not the sort to wear bracelets. That's more of a ten-year-old girl kind of thing, and I know I won't keep this on long. I can't let Mark see it, or there'll be hell to pay, mostly for Roger. And that, again, is why I have to leave. "Thank you."

"I can't go." But he wants to.

I nod. I touch his cheek, let my palm rest against it, and I can feel him trembling. "I'll miss you, Roger." I kiss him, softly, with my eyes closed. I mean to kiss his cheek, and I do, though the corner of my mouth touches the corner of his.

Then, to business. I draw away from him. "Find a reason to live, Roger." He's still suicidal, just not actively. It's a passive suicide. It's a place no one can revive him from but he himself, and maybe, if he finds his heart... Mark. "Mark does love you, in his own way, he loves you."

Roger hugs me again. "Come home," he says. "Come visit us. You'll visit us at Christmas, won't you?"

Christmas. It's not even summer yet.

"I'll try, Roger."

"Call."

"I will."

Damp barely kisses my shirt, tears he can't stop from bleeding out onto his eyelashes. "Be good."

"I hate you for leaving. You know that, don't you?"

"Yeah, I know." And I know he doesn't mean it. "I'll call."

"'Kay," he chokes, then he releases me and scuttles back into Mark's bedroom.

_To be continued!_

Reviews would be appreciated... please?


	27. Just Us

Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson. There's a Pascal quote in the chapter. Try to find it!

_Mark_

That last night, we all had pizza—even Roger, who ate two pieces without being urged—and stayed up laughing and talking and teasing each other. Roger curled up on the couch a little after midnight and two beers.

We had a good laugh at that, just before Roger nodded off. Collins punched Roger's shoulder and called him a lightweight. Roger mumbled something incoherent and fell asleep.

"You gonna be okay, Mark?" Collins asked. It was around two a.m. We were out of pizza, and there were more than a few beer bottles on the floor.

My throat constricted. "I'll be fine."

Roger whimpered in his sleep and butted his head against Collins' thigh. Whether he was trying to stretch out or begging for attention, I don't know, but Collins petted his hair and he calmed down. "I keep expecting him to purr," he admitted.

I struggled to keep myself from snapping. "He doesn't." It was one thing for Roger to sit next to Collins on the couch, but he was practically slobbering on him!

"Well, I'm going to get to bed… see you in the morning, Mark." And Collins just walked off.

"Roger." I shook his shoulder. He murmured and tried to move away from me. "Come on, baby. You can't sleep here."

"Wha… Mark…? 'S go'n on?"

"You fell asleep on the couch," I told him.

"Oh. Kay."

When I woke up the next morning, the door to Collins' room was open and the room was empty. Roger sat on the bench by the window, shaking. At first I thought he was crying but, no, he was just shivering from the cold.

"Hey, Roger." I sat in front of him and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. "You okay?"

"Mark?"

"Hm?"

Roger scooted close enough to hug me and wrapped the blanket around both of our trembling bodies. I sighed. This was nice. This was nice, just my boyfriend and me…

It's been a week since Collins left.

"H-hey, Mark." Roger hugs me the moment I walk in the door, enveloping me in warmth and comfort as he presses a kiss to my cheek. The tiredness of a day's work (half-day's, anyway) that settled again around my shoulders after sloughing off in a sexual frenzy slips down the stairs and away.

Roger gives one final squeeze before releasing me. "I missed you," he says softly, though we've only been apart for a matter of hours. A pulse pounds through my groin at the sight of his face, his lips curved into a soft smile, his eyes clear.

I rest my arms around his shoulders. "I missed you, too, baby." He closes his eyes and lets his head droop slightly. I swallow hard. He has very nice eyelashes…

Roger stiffens when he feels it against his hip. He gently takes my hands off his neck and steps back. "Dinner's almost ready," he says. "Do you want to just relax a bit?" His front teeth poke over his upper lip. "I think we have some beers…"

"Hey." I grin. "Roger, you don't have to take care of me." To prove it, I head into the kitchen a grab a beer for myself. See? Perfectly sufficient.

I sit nearby so we can talk as Roger boils some water and drops in a few handfuls of pasta. He sings under his breath as he does so.

"I didn't know we had pasta," I remark.

Roger shoots me a smile. "We had eggs and flour and salt," he says, then looks back at the water boiling in the pot. I catch a snippet of his song: "…bothered waiting on miracles," or something akin.

"Baby, you _made_ pasta?"

Roger nods. "Mm." He doesn't look at me. He drains the pasta and says, "Okay, here's pasta and pesto…"

He sits on the couch with a bowl containing, I notice, just a few pieces of pasta. I take the rest, a full bowl. Roger did this on purpose. My stomach clenches. It's not just aversion. He's planning it now.

I sit beside him and spear a few pieces of pasta. "Mmm!" My eyes pop open. "Roger, this is great!"

He gives me another little smile. "Glad you like it."

"I do. Here." I spear another mouthful if pasta and hold the fork out to Roger.

"I have," he says, indicating his bowl.

"Oh." Unsure what to do, I return to my own meal. It was delicious, but I'm suddenly not so hungry. I set the bowl on the ground.

"What's wrong?"

I pat my lap. "Sit, Roger." He looks uncertain, looks away. I muss his hair gently. "It's okay," I coo. Slowly, too slowly, Roger scoots over onto my lap. He trembles, stretches up and kisses my lips. When Roger pulls away, he searches my expression, uncertain. I can feel his bottom against my thighs. It's tense to the point I would be afraid to try having sex with him.

I pick up my bowl and kiss his neck as softly as I can. "You're not here to please me, Roger." I hold out the fork. "Try to take a bite, lovely. It's really delicious. _Choose_ to eat it." I muss his hair as, ever slowly, he eats.

_Roger_

_Do this for Mark._

"Okay."

I'm standing in the middle of the bedroom, toes curled, most of my weight on the sides of my feet and the ends of my sweatpants pinned under my heels. It's cold. It's very cold outside, but the room is warm. The heating unit, our joy and glory, emits bubbling noises like hunger from its ribby, starved body.

My own body seems to have forgotten hunger. It's forgotten everything but anticipation, and not the happy anticipation I used to feel, either, and I hate that, I hate that I love Mark and I want to trust him, but… but then _it is the heart that perceives God, not the reason._ It is that heart that perceives when there is no reason.

But what about when there is reason? What about when I'm standing here wanting to trust Mark who has never, physically, hurt me, and I'm afraid but not of him?

"Roger?" Mark touches my cheek. "We don't have to—"

I shake my head. "I want to." _For you. _

Mark searches my face, and I wonder if he reads anything. His expression of concern remains. "Okay," he decrees. "Um… lie down on the bed. Wait. Take off your shirt." I do. It's not much of a shirt, fairly worn and threadbare, but it's something. The thin cloth collects on the floor, far away from our heater. I'm careful.

Mark looks at me, really looks. I wonder what he sees. I wonder what bothers him. The flabbiness that once was muscle? It isn't exactly pouring over; I'm still… well. It's not muscle anymore. Neither are my biceps strong, though my legs… I do run. I've been running around the loft a bit, but… I've lost my muscle, my body. I used to be able to control it. I used to know just what it, I, was. Now I don't know what makes me me.

I shift my arms. Hide it. I don't care if I turn Mark on now, I know he won't fuck me, I can't handle that. But I also don't want him disgusted. When I'm ready again, I still want him to want me. Furthermore, I don't want him waiting all this time for a prize that's, well, more a consolation prize.

"Don't, Roger." Mark touches my arms. He pushes them apart gently, down to my sides. His palm kisses my cheek, and his lips kiss my lips.

"I don't…" want you to see me now. I'll be better when…

"Roger…" He locks his fingers at the back of my neck. For a moment he looks at me, then he says, "Lie down on the bed, all right? Facedown."

I lie down and shift my hips up. It's too fast. This is too fast. I'm not ready for it yet, not ready for him inside me. I'm not ready to be fucked. But maybe he'll do it and who knows, I might enjoy it, it might be fun, I might be… cured. Better. Able to function as a boyfriend. I slip my thumbs under my waistband and begin to slide my pants down.

"You can keep those on. If you want," Mark adds. The mattress shifts as he sits down, and I find that my throat is tight. I hug a pillow to my chest. And, against my will, I whimper. "Sh-h." Mark rests a hand on my shoulder. He flips his hand and runs his knuckles down my spine, gently. It feels nice, and I relax.

His fingers trace invisible patterns on the expanse of my back. I remember storybooks, little children, under the eye of a cheery-faced adult relative, drawing with thimbles on frosted windowpanes. The designs came from Jack Frost.

I close my eyes. It's almost musical, something soft in quarter notes with a quarter-note rest like a catch of air in the chest. Mark's fingers, soft, they're like electricity against my skin. His knuckles again trace figure-eights along my spine.

He rests one palm flat against my back. "Mm." His skin is warm. With his free hand Mark fluffs my hair. I smile. "I love you," I murmur.

Mark pauses. His hand goes rigid on my back, and I open my eyes. "What is it?" I look up at him. "What's wrong?"

Mark shakes his head. "Nothing."

It's been a long time since I said that like I meant it. I reach up to his shoulder. "Lay down with me?" Mark shifts; I roll onto my side and my arms slide around his waist. Mark pulls the blankets up around us. It's warm. I swallow a yawn.

"Tell me something about you," I say.

"What do you want to know?" Mark asks.

"Tell me…" Something happy. Don't tell me about high school. Don't tell me about college. Don't talk about what you had but I can't. "Tell me about the first time you met Collins."

Mark laughs. "Okay." And he does.

I stay awake just long enough to remember the story. Then I ask him, "Will you turn off the heater?"

"Baby, it's freezing."

"I know. I know, but… I want to wake up in the middle of the night," I say, "shivering, and I want to curl up against you and warm up." I smile up at him. "It's been a dream of mine since we moved to Cedar City," I admit. "Indulge me?"

Mark smiles. He flicks off the radiator and climbs into bed.

_To be continued..._

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	28. Beggars in November

Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson. I'm just playing with the characters.

_Mark_

The phone rings. It echoes through the loft, bounces, skids across surfaces and knocks dust to the floor. There's so much dust now. And no food, just tins of soup and spaghetti with sauce. Which I don't eat.

The phone rings. It wakes me.

I groan and sit up. I rub my eyes. I rub my back. I rub my head.

The phone rings. I stand. It's too bright in the loft and I release two photic sneezes. Light pours in, too bright early August sunlight. I support myself on the couch.

The phone rings.

"I'm coming," I whine. Why does it have to be so loud?

I know who it is even before I answer. Only one person is so loud, so persistent, and usually doesn't bother me. It isn't Mom asking me to call her back, her tone hinting that maybe she lent me that money to keep me a part of her life. It isn't the high, smooth voice I want to hear. It's not even Maureen, whining that she just needs to crash for a few days.

"Hey," I answer the phone.

"Hey, Mark. What a pleasure to hear your joyful tone this afternoon." Collins' voice is bright and filled with nipping sarcasm.

I sigh. _Roger can't come to the phone,_ I would say. _He's in the shower. He's on the roof. Thinking. He's tuning his guitar. He's crying, I can't talk. He's in the bathroom. He went out for a run. He's taking a nap. He has a headache._

"How are you, Collins?"

"Fine, fine. Hoping to come home soon."

My stomach melts into sickness. "Great," I say. I—"We miss you."

"I'll bet." I deserved that. "How are things with you?"

"I'm fine."

"How's the kid?" he asks.

"Roger's fine. He's…" And I pause, feeling that horrible knowledge overwhelm me. My palm hits the table, hard, and the phone jumps to the floor. "Shit!" I grab it and pick it up. "You still there?" I love Collins, but I almost hope he'll say no.

"Yeah. You were saying about Roger?"

"He's napping," I say. The dustiest room is probably our—my bedroom. I haven't been in since that day. "Roger's napping. He couldn't sleep last night." The bathroom floor is perfectly comfortable. Cold, but acceptable. I sleep under a towel and on top of the other towel.

Sucks after a shower.

"Shit, he's still having nightmares?"

"Yeah." I don't know.

"Why did you tell me?" Collins asks.

"I… this was the first," I lie. "This was the first one in months."

"Good," Collins says. "Or maybe not." He sighs. "I thought he was…"

Getting better.

It's after talking to Collins that the loft seems so big I'm drowning. Funny how unused rooms only loom.

I put on my coat and wrap my scarf around my neck. I need to get out. "Roger," I call, "I'm leaving." Like maybe, just maybe, if the sound echoes, he'll come home. "I'll be back soon!" so he'll stay.

It's my fault Roger left. It's because of my God-damned libido.

When I walked into the room and he was there, stretched out on the bed, naked and facedown, what should I have thought? He had his hands stretched above his head and on the table by the bed, Vaseline, condoms, and all of our… all of my toys. Practically every ounce of blood in my body drained into my cock.

I was on top of Roger before I could think. I came three times before I was finished, then collapsed onto the bed beside him, panting, grinning, madly in love with him. Roger moaned and wriggled over to cuddle up to me, and I put my arms around him and fell asleep.

The next day I decided to change the sheets. Three orgasms produces a lot of cum, and though mine had gone neatly into condoms, Roger's had probably crusted half the bed.

When I pulled back the blankets, though… nothing. No mess. I knew these were the sheets from last night, because Roger had had no chance to change them and I certainly hadn't. Roger had not ejaculated. Now that I thought about it, he had said nothing the previous evening. Well it had been obvious enough, all the toys and nudity and such.

Wait. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe he wore condoms, too. No one wants to sleep in cum-crust.

Except that he didn't take anything off. Roger was perfectly still, grunted a bit but not excessively. He only moved to be closer to me after I had pulled out the last time.

I confronted him about it when he came into the bedroom. "Did you have fun last night?" I asked.

"Yeah," Roger said.

"You didn't spray the sheets."

He forced himself to laugh. "You're mad that I d-didn't mess your b-bed?"

_Shit._ It was always bad news when the stammer returned. "I don't know why we're having sex if you don't like it," I said, more coldly than I meant to.

"Y-you like it," Roger said.

"Not if you don't."

"You did l-last n-night."

"Roger... if you didn't want to have sex," I began, finally asking about what had truly puzzled me, "why would you do that? Lie like that, all… naked?"

Roger shrugged. "You l-like s-s-s…" Roger looked at his shoes, took a gulp of air and said, "sex."

"But you--"

"I like it," he told me so quickly the words blurred together. He even looked at me as he spoke, though after his gaze dropped. "After," he whispered.

"What?"

"You… you like s-sex. I l-like a-after," he explained. "J-just being w-with you."

"Roger…" Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. He thought he needed to be a whore for me to love him? He thought… he thought I cared more about fucking than about him? "Why couldn't you just say that?" I demanded.

He shrugged. "Y…you'd been… h-holding me. Lately. I w-w-w… th-thought you c-could h-have s-something, t-too."

"Jesus, Roger!" I stood up. I couldn't listen to this. "I can't _do_ this!"

"Mark--"

"I love you," I fumed. "I love you, but I want to be with you! Where are you, Roger? I can't be with this degenerate, insecure child, I want my boyfriend back!" And I stormed out of the apartment, because I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't take his insecurity, his need.

I couldn't take being a complete asshole.

And that was it. When I returned home, Roger, along with his possessions, had disappeared. He left the guitar, though.

As I stomp down the pavement, I can't stop thinking about that day. I still don't know why I shouted. Well… I do. I just wish I hadn't.

"Can you spare a quarter?"

I try to close my ears. I hate bums. I hate them because I'm afraid of becoming one, and because when I was small my parents gave me allowance and I could give change to beggars and now…

"Please, mister. It's really cold. You got a quarter, mister, please?"

Now, I can just shake my head. No, I don't have a quarter. I try to go invisible as I approach the bum. I try to think about Roger. I try to remember him _before_, when he smiled and laughed and hugged me because he wanted, not needed, to.

"Spare change, miss?"

It doesn't work.

"Please, miss, do you have a dollar? Thank you, miss. Thank you so much."

Why does he have to sound so _young_, this damned beggar?

I forgot Roger's birthday. Again. Last year he was upset. He tried to hide it, but he was. This year? I think it hurt him. He remembered my birthday. My birthday was _before_, and Roger gifted me two pairs of socks and a night of amazing sex. He liked sex, then.

"D'you got a dollar, miss? Spare some change? Please, miss. Miss… It looks like rain, miss, you should get inside with your nice dress on. Thank you. Thank you so much."

He sounds as though he means that.

I'm only a few feet away. He'll start working me soon.

"Mister?" he asks. His voice is quiet. He made sure the others heard. Maybe he knows I can't pay him, because he practically whispers to me. "Please, mister. You got any change? Please, mister." He's sick. I can hear in his voice that he's got a nasty cold coming on, and on the streets, at this time of year…

I turn. He's _young_, this one. He isn't a child, but probably a teenager. "Please mister," he whispers, in the same tone Roger would beg me to finish it, when I used to tease him so he screamed when he orgasmed. "Please…"

There's something too familiar about his eyes and his lips. Under all that dirt, he could be Roger's baby brother if his hair was lighter.

"Please," he says again. Then he covers his mouth and coughs. This guy's sick. He's sick, and he's so like Roger, or maybe it's just my memory saying so.

It's been almost five months, I realize, since I even saw Roger. Maybe I don't even know what he looks like anymore. Maybe I see him everywhere.

When this beggar raises his damp eyes, he sniffles and wheezes, "'s cold. Y-you g-got a quarter, mister?"

"Shit," I say.

I look at him, at this beggar on the street with his grimy hands out, his pathetic face, and I say, "Oh, Roger…"

_To be continued!_

Yikes, I don't know how it got to be so long between updates. Hopefully next chapter'll be out in less time. Until then... review? Pretty please?


	29. Coming Clean

**Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson.**

_Roger_

"Shh, Roger…"

Mark peels away layers of clothing so dirty they're stiff. I can't do it myself. I'm shaking and cold and stiff and tired. He helps me undress and puts me under the shower and I just stand there, shivering, not knowing what to do. Water pounds against my shoulders, warm water, and it feels so good to let the past weeks… months… the past year wash away.

Mark picks up the soap and starts running it across my back, and I lower my head and hunch my shoulders and urinate on myself.

Which isn't the first time. But it's in the shower so it was ok.

I don't mind. I used to be embarrassed when I went in Mark's bed. I don't care, now, not after using so many back alleys. People glare at you when you piss in public, but then, they don't want you in their places, neither, not even McDonald's.

I shiver as I step out of the shower. I take the towel. At least I remember this much. I take the towel and start drying myself off. I shiver and my teeth chatter, but I keep drying.

"Do you have any clean clothes?" Mark asks. He bites his lip.

I look at him. Clean? You mean clothes that aren't thick with dirt? You mean clothes that only don't have nits in them because it's too damn cold for nits? You mean clothes I never pissed in the middle of nightmares or when I could scrounge up the cash fast enough and I shook too hard to undo my fly?

"I'll, uh… I'll go find you something," Mark says. He walks out.

I wonder how much Mark notices about my body. I used to notice. I used to look at the tiny brown marks that could be freckles, but they're too faint. They were purple first, but they're old now, only scars.

There are burns on my fingers where the lighter caught me. I was shaking so bad. I _needed it_ so bad.

My hair's longer now. It plasters the back of my neck and touches my back. It feels strange, wet.

I used to notice while my weight dropped. Collins used to notice.

"Is Collins home yet?"

Those are the first words out of my mouth when Mark arrives with a clean pair of underwear and a T-shirt for me to wear. Those are the first words I've spoken to him in about half a year, and considering that I could've chosen better.

Mark shakes his head. "No, Roger. Collins isn't home. He went to MIT, remember?"

I nod. I hug myself.

I want Collins.

But he's not here, and who knows when he'll be back, so I dress myself in the clothes Mark brought. "I'll make you something to eat," he says, "okay? You just go lie down."

I nod.

It's like a different place. The last apartment I remember had the couch turned towards the window so sun streamed against the cushions in the afternoon.

The bed is softer than I remember. I shuffle onto the mattress and lie down under the covers. I'm still shaking, but from the cold.

…right?

"Mark.'' The word sneaks out, a tiny whimper pressing up against the pillows. Pillows. I haven't had a real one in ages, not that wasn't a wadded-up jacket or my folded arms. It feels so soft. I hug the pillow, and snuggle deeper under the covers.

"Hey." The mattress shifts as Mark sits on the edge. He rubs my arm. "Can you get up to eat something?" Then, too soon, his voice too strained, "Please try."

I sit up. Mark pushes a plate towards me. Sitting atop it is half a sandwich. It's not much, and I'll say this for my time spent on the streets: I pick up the sandwich and shove half of it into my mouth. It hurts going down, but I don't want to chew. I just swallow.

Then I swallow the rest.

I don't say thank you. I don't know why. The words just won't come.

"Roger?" Mark asks, tentative. "Baby?"

"Mhm?"

"It's… getting pretty late." And for once, I won't be sleeping on the streets. I won't be huddled in a doorway. "You tired?"

I nod.

"Okay."

Mark lies down with me, and he's warm and he's close and he holds me near him. I tremble and my body is aching, but my eyes close.

I don't know how long I've been asleep, but my eyes open and they ache like they've _been_ open. I move and Mark's hold on me tightens and I get up and go into the bathroom and I throw up the sandwich he made me.

I brush my teeth with his toothbrush and go back to bed but I know it'll only get worse.

_Mark_

I wake up in the morning… it's early. I moan. I don't like mornings. Mornings mean remembering that Roger's not here, and the pain begins before I remember why I'm experiencing pain.

_No._

No, because today that's not true. Today Roger _is_ here. He isn't in bed. I imagine him in the kitchen, making breakfast. I imagine him cooking up foods we don't have, eggs and potatoes and toast with jam. We do have bread.

I imagine Roger waking me up. He sets plates on the bed and we eat. The color returns to his face and we smile and laugh. We put the plates on the floor and laugh. Roger climbs on top of me and we kiss. We tumble. I tickle him and he giggles and tickles me back.

I feel the warmth of Roger's body, the calluses on his fingers.

He lets me film him cooking, when we realize that it is night and we've been talking and cuddling all day. He makes pancakes and bacon. He flips the pancakes up high and some of them miss the pan.

I'm about to roll over and go back to sleep when I realize that this is a fantasy. It's morning.

I'm alone.

What the hell? Roger came back yesterday.

Didn't he?

Why isn't he here?

My mind reels, too fast and not understanding. Where is he? Did I imagine that, too? Is Roger not here at all, and I just imagined that some random bum had become Roger?

Was I mugged by said bum?

Where's Roger?

Where. Is. Roger.

I jump out of bed, trailing the covers halfway to the bedroom door. He's not in the kitchen. Dammit, dammit. Where is he? Is he with somebody else? Did he leave again?

Did I fuck up? What did I say?

"Roger!" I call. Please don't be gone again.

Please don't leave me alone again.

I push open the door to the bathroom. A wave of relief rushes through me as I see him, then relief fades, replaced by concern. He's sprawled on the bathroom floor, and the room smells like vomit. "Roger!" I kneel beside him and lift his head. He moans and blinks. Thank God. "What's wrong?"

"What?" he asks. "Ooh… Mark… Mark, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"Shh." I pull him close to me. "It's okay, Roger."

"Mark. Mark, I have to tell you…"

"No," I insist. "No, it'll wait. Let's just get you to bed, okay?"

"No." He's surprisingly persistent for someone shaking. "I have to… I have…" Roger fumbles around and produces a paper, worn and crumbled. He's had this on him for a while.

Roger extends his arm to me. It's shaking so badly I have to squash the urge to hurry him to bed. Instead I do as Roger asks. I'm too curious not to. I take the paper.

"Oh my God."

Roger looks at the floor. He slumps against the wall.

"Roger."

He nods. Yes.

Jesus.

No.

"Mark?"

"Roger…"

Roger throws himself to the toilet and begins vomiting. I can't bring myself to comfort him. I just stare. What if it's in his puke?

HIV.

He looks up at me, his eyes wet with tears, begging me to make it better. I should hold his hand. I should rub his back. I should kiss his tears away.

But I just stand here and stare.

Roger is HIV positive.

_to be continued..._

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	30. Roger's Bad Dream

Disclaimer: RENT is Jonathan Larson's.

**Tuesday**

_Roger_

I don't know much. I don't know how many days it's been since this pain started or since Mark brought me here or since I ate any real, solid food. I know this: someone is coming today.

I don't know who.

I hope it's Collins.

A few days ago, Mark was on the phone with this 'somebody'. I heard part of the conversation. Mark said "no" and "stop" and "it's better if you don't", but then he sighed and said, "If you can bring me a prescription for AZT. Okay. See you Tuesday."

Please be Collins.

It's Tuesday.

My face presses against the sweaty sheet. My cheek. The sheet grows tighter; it becomes an extra layer of skin against my skin, a protection. My fingers hold the pillow against my chest. They hurt. They'll hurt more when I try to uncurl them.

Mark's awake, too. He hasn't come in yet. He won't. He won't until he has to.

Out in the loft, water splashes. Metal clangs against metal. Mark passes through my line of vision and I hear water again. He's in the bathroom now. When he emerges, he'll check the pot to see if it's boiled and ready for another bag from the 79 cent box of Darjeeling.

I hate Darjeeling. I don't care if it's the cheapest. Water for me, please, thanks.

The pillow smells faintly of soap and pot, but more prominently, it smells like sweat. My sweat, soaked in. I hold it tighter. _Pillow._ It's nice to have something to hold.

The telephone rings. I startle but stay in bed. Don't want to go out before I have to. Wait until he comes up.

_You don't know that it's Collins,_ I think. But I know that it's Collins. It has to be Collins. Who else could it be? Of course it's Collins.

"Hey, man," Mark answers the phone. Mark's not that casual with anyone else, anyone except Collins. "Yeah, thanks for the heads-up. See you soon."

He pours his tea and sets it to steep. Footsteps approach my door. I let my eyelids drift shut.

_Breeeeathe iiin _

_Breeeathe out_

Mark sighs and the door clicks shut.

Damn.

I open my eyes. Now I can do anything. I can do whatever I want. As long as I stay in bed.

Mark wants me to stay in here. He wants me to be asleep.

I look at the ceiling.

One crack

Two cracks

Three cracks

I'm bored.

There are cobwebs in the corner. Are there any spiders? I used to be scared of spiders. I don't like them, creepy crawly with those clack legs across you while you sleep. Almost they're as bad as centipedes.

Aaah, I hate centipedes. I hate creepy crawlies. You don't get those in the desert. Didn't see them when we lived in Taos, just snakes and scorpions. I don't mind snakes and scorpions. Snakes are actually quite pleasant to touch.

The door opens. I sit upright, lift the covers and begin climbing out. My foot has almost touched the floor when I remember Mark wants me to stay in here. I pull my leg up and tuck myself in again.

"Hey."

"Hey, Mark."

That's not Collins! Who the hell is this, coming into our home? Why'd Mark let him in? Mark should make him leave. He has no place here. Where's Collins? Why isn't Collins here? Who is this new person?

Make him leave.

Mark doesn't. They talk.

Stupid.

I roll over and snuggle deeper under the covers.

_New people._

Gross. I wish Mark hadn't let him up.

Mark and his new friend—new friend!? Is this his boyfriend? Has Mark been seeing someone else?—talk, and I close my eyes and drift in and out of sleep.

One time I wake up and there's someone standing by my bed. He seems tall, but I bet he'd seem shorter if I stood up.

"Hi," he says. "You must be Roger."

I try to get up, but he holds out his hand. "That's okay. Don't get up. I just wanted to introduce myself. I'm Benny."

"Hi… Benny," I say. I don't like this dream.

My dream crouches down by the bed and says, quietly, "You really sick?" I nod. And my dream says, "Not… withdrawal-sick?"

I don't like this dream.

_to be continued!_

...review? Pretty please?


	31. Roger's AZT

This chapter was written half by me and half by Falling April. (Thanks!)

Disclaimer: RENT is Jonathan Larson's.

Roger stays awake. He stares at the walls, stares at the ceiling, stares at the door that used to be Collins's and now it's his and he's trying not to think about that, trying not to think about missing him, trying not to think anything about his own life. His body and his mind aren't together. Instead he's floating as the room spins and tilts.

Mark stands in the kitchen, staring at the pill bottle in his hands. Azidothymidine, it reads, and it's such a complicated name for such a simple pill. It's what's going to keep Roger alive. Longer than he would be otherwise, at any rate. And assuming he'll take it. Mark opens the bottle with more force than is strictly necessary and shakes one of the pills out. One tiny pill to fight the thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of tiny virus cells in Roger's blood, eating away at him from the inside--

"No," Mark says sharply, out loud, and the sound of his voice snaps him back to the moment. He grabs a glass of water from the counter and knocks on the door to Roger's room before opening the door slightly. "Roger?"

He doesn't want him near right now. _Don't need you._ A surge of hate pulses through him, he's just not sure if he hates himself or he hates Mark or if he hates them both, and if so which of them he hates more. He stares at the opposite wall. Maybe if he keeps staring and he doesn't move, just just juuuust maybe he'll leave him the hell alone.

Go away, Mark. Go. A. Way.

He's not answering. Maybe he's asleep. That would give Mark the perfect excuse to do this later, don't want to wake Roger up, he needs his rest. Except he needs this medication, too. He could pass out from exhaustion. Or die of AIDS. Mark forces himself to walk further in and sit on the edge of the bed. "Roger, I've got some..." he pauses, trying to think of what exactly to call this - just saying 'AZT' seems wrong, somehow, "some medication you need to take."

Roger doesn't move, just breathe in, breathe out, sleeping.

"Roger, come on, wake up." Mark doesn't reach out to shake him gently. If he does, something might snap, Roger could disappear (he might try to kiss him, even now), bad things could happen. He fights against the urge to yell, lose his patience. "You need to take this."

Stubbornly pressing his eyelids together, Roger murmur, "I'll take it later." Maybe it would be ok to take just one. How much of his body has the sickness already eaten? Surely one pill can't undo the damage. He will take it, for him, for the good they had before the bad, he resolves. _I'll take it-- I just can't face him._

"You should take it now." Mark doesn't want to be doing this. Collins should be here, Collins should be the one dealing with this and trying to get Roger to take this damn medicine. Not Mark.

Roger rolls over, intending to chew him out. And why the hell not? _It isn't fair. This isn't fucking fair. It's not fair what happened at school, that he had to drop out, what April did and it's just not fair. He was eighteen years old. Sometimes I'd like to act like a normal eighteen-year-old. I'd like to sulk dramatically and be snide, I'd like to talk back to my parents and cry and whine and eat and fart and be lazy._

Not all the time. It'd just be nice once in a while. That's what he means to do when he rolls over. He means to be rude and selfish like the teenager that he is.

But then he sees Mark, and what comes out isn't, I'll take it when I damn well please. What comes out is, "Will you stay with me tonight?"

It's startling, and Mark wasn't expecting it. Expecting a 'leave me alone' or a 'fuck off' or even an 'I hate you', but not that. "I..." selfishly, he wants to say no, wants to tell Roger that he's a big boy and he can take care of himself. But he remembers exactly how young and lost Roger'd been when Mark had found him, and realizes that he really can't. "I'll stay if you take this when you're supposed to," he says finally, feeling a little guilty for using such a tactic. But in the end, as long as it got the job done... would it matter?

Roger puts the pill on his tongue and takes a sip of water. He still feels the pill while it goes down, but it's gone. Means to an end. Another day for a few pleasant hours. It's a fair trade. He bats his eyelashes at Mark, then opens his mouth to show him: no pill.

"Thank you for the visual," Mark says dryly, not moving. Just hold him, he tells himself. It won't hurt you to hold him.

Roger closes his mouth. He doesn't want him to stay here anymore. Why is he such an asshole? Really. Why? What is it about Mark that makes him hateful? "Fuck off," Roger murmurs. He wanted _his_ Mark to stay. What happened to the Mark who was in love? What happened to the Mark who wanted to be around Roger? And what happened to the Roger who made him want that?

"I thought you wanted me to stay," Mark points out, sounding vaguely frustrated. He tries to hide it, but there's only so much he can do. "So do you want me to, or did you change your mind?" Say no, Mark pleads silently, but he's not sure which he wants Roger to say no to.

"Fuck off and die," Roger spits, hating Mark and hating himself and feeling good to be such a total asswipe. The thing about hatred is, it's so pure. It flushes through you, so hot it burns out everything else. And yeah, if it doesn't last it leaves pain and blisters in its wake, but in its arms you feel only comfortable warmth.

Of course hatred is kind of... pure evil, if you struggle to maintain it. There was a Roger who would have been hurt by that. There was. But that Roger died like King Edward and he'd never be back.

It's the last word that chokes the equally angry words in Mark's throat. Die. Whether he wants to think about it or not, Roger's going to die, a lot sooner than any kid should. And Mark knows he was stupid and a failure as... not even just as a boyfriend but as a friend. He clenches his jaw for a moment, swallowing the anger as much as he can - he can take it out on his pillow and innocent passerby later. He can rant at someone - anyone - about what a selfish little bastard Roger's being - later. Right now, he needs to try to not screw up again.

"No. I said I'd stay, so I'll stay."

"You don't have to," Roger insists. Why should he fucking want to? "I mean... you know I don't make it through the night anymore, anyway."

"I'd just be back in here with another dose of AZT in four hours anyway," Mark says, trying to brush it off, as if four hours were more like ten minutes, there's nothing he could do in that time if he leaves. Which isn't true, but that's not really the point... is it? "I'll stay." He turns and draws his legs up onto the bed. An uncomfortable silence falls momentarily. "How're you feeling?" Mark blurts in a stunning display of awkwardness.

_Sorry. For you. I'm sorry for you because believe it or not you're so fucking smart, not like me, no, you're really smart and you had a really good future and you ended up acting as nursemaid to an HIV+ ex-junkie fag who can't get his own damn life into shape enough to get out of bed in the morning, Good God Mark you deserve better than this._

He's feeling nauseous and tired because he hates these pills so much.

"Okay," Roger says. "How're you?"

"Fine." Mark knows the answer Roger gave him is a lie, and if he were Collins he'd call Roger on it and make him be honest. But he's not Collins, and it's taking all his efforts to just be sure to not lose his patience. He starts to say something else when he realizes that he has nothing to say.

How could they have gone from what they were at the beginning to this?

Roger wants to touch Mark... but he doesn't. What if he's cold? What if he's like the ice at the beach that steams out of coolers (_man those are the best ice cream sandwiches_) and makes you stick? If he touches him and can't get his finger back? What then? What if Mark doesn't want to be touched?

So Roger just shifts awkwardly.

He wants to ask him, do you ever think about That Day? Do you ever wonder if we might still be together if I hadn't started wetting the bed afterwards? When do you think Collins is gonna come home? He promised me... he promised he'd be home for Christmas... D'you think he forgot, Mark?

Silence.

So many questions hanging in the air unspoken, with unwanted answers - some of them with no answers. They're practically suffocating Mark, simply by existing. After a few moments, he sighs and shifts positions to get more comfortable; as he moves his hand brushes against Roger's wrist and he freezes.

Hold his hand pull away touch don't touch make up your god-damned mind...

Mark can't bring himself to touch Roger any more definitely than the fingers still brushing the younger boy's wrist, but he can't pull away. He's stuck in a sort of limbo and he can't move to get out either way.

Roger twists his hand. Why is Mark so tense? Fingertips rest against fingertips. It's just like they used to do, used to hold hands...

Mark's fingertips burn for a moment, touching Roger's, and then without thinking, they're linking with his, holding his hand like they used to, and it's like a sigh of relief as Mark feels his entire body relax - not entirely, but significantly. He remembers the last thing he'd said to Roger before he'd stormed out, and guilt washes over him.

He should've known better. He should've fucking known. "I missed you , y'know," he mumbles awkwardly.

"I missed you, too," Roger says. He missed who Mark used to be, and how they used to be. But he was scared and hurt and desperate, and only had time for missing him at night. _Did he think about me?_ "You know, sometimes I worried about you."

That startles a sort of half-hearted laugh out of Mark's mouth before he can stop it. "Me? You were the one living on the street doing... god knows what for money." He hadn't thought about it before, but it hits him - what had Roger been doing for money? There was no way he'd survived just on begging...

But Mark doesn't want to know. Doesn't want to think about it. As far as Mark is concerned, Roger could've made money out of thin air - it doesn't matter.

"I know," he says. "But I worried about you being alone." Roger pulls his knees up to his chest. _Should I tell him? Should I tell him about the drugs? Should I tell him why I have AIDS?_ He cocks his head to the side. "Do you want to know what I did for money?" he asks.

"No," Mark lies instantly. "It doesn't matter." So many things to say - glad you're back, still love you, can we try again - and yet Mark can't seem to say much of anything. He rubs his thumb absently over Roger's and tries to pinpoint when everything went wrong. When he couldn't keep his temper. No, when Collins left. When Roger was raped.

When he kissed Roger at a game. That's what it boils down to, every time, no matter how much Mark tries to shove the blame on everyone but him.

And so there's really nothing to say.

Roger puts his chin against his knees.

_I should tell him. _

_I should tell him... how I got sick. Not just HIV, but the "flu" I had when I came home. I should tell him about April and how she died. I should tell him how I missed him every second. _

_Or maybe I should tell him why I can't help pay the rent or buy my pills or pay food bills.  
_  
But what it comes out as is, "I don't wanna leave the apartment."

"Okay," The response is out of Mark's mouth before he can even think - it's such a simple request, a simple desire, so easy to fulfill, how can Mark not say it's okay? It's enough just to have Roger back home - even if he doesn't know exactly what to do, even if it's already trying his patience again, it's so good, so right to have him back. Mark untangles his fingers from Roger's long enough to wrap his arms around him.

After all the shit Roger's been through - especially the shit that was Mark's fault - the least he can do is hug him.

Roger falls into the hug, lets the warmth and comfort burst through him. "Is it ok if I go to sleep now?" he asks. It's the middle of the afternoon, but he feels so tired.

"Yeah." Mark tries to ignore the tightness in his chest at having Roger in his arms again. "I'll wake you up in a few hours for your AZT." The constant reminder that things can never go back to the way they were, even if they want them to.

"Thanks, Mark. Really. Thanks. I appreciate it." But right now, even over that gratitude, is the feeling of wanting sleep so badly it hurts.

"Go to sleep Roger," Mark says softly. That's all there is right now, is him, and Roger, and getting Roger to sleep.

_... to be continued!_

Next chapter: Collins comes home. Will the boys be glad to see him? Will Roger tell him the truth? Will I get the next chapter out in a timely manner?

Find out!

(and pretty please, review?)


	32. All That's Known

Disclaimer: It's Mr. Larson's. I'm just playing.

_Roger_

Mark and I are almost on pleasant terms. We adjust to one another's presence. Mark tells me about the tacky mug his mother sent him, covered with stars of David with big smiley faces in the center. He gives it to me before the tremors have stopped. It shatters and splashes cocoa all over the floor and we stare, both of us asking ourselves if it was intentional. We laugh.

We begin to be friends.

Then the call comes.

"_Roger_ picked up the phone?!"

I admit that for a long time, I didn't like to answer it. That was almost a year ago, forever really.

Then Mark pulls the phone away. "No, it's me." I want to talk to him, but Mark clearly has something else on his mind. He isn't even looking at me, so I respond by not looking at him. Time to tune my guitar, anyway. Needless to say Mark hasn't been taking care of it.

It's about an hour later that things have calmed. I'm slurping Ramen noodles when, out of curiosity, I ask, "How much does Collins know?" I don't mind telling him. Anything, everything, there's nothing Collins doesn't know so it doesn't matter what I do or don't tell him.

Mark looks away. "Nothing," he murmurs.

"Nothing?" I don't understand it. So he hasn't visited? It admittedly hurts. I haven't been here, I know, but did he forget about us? Is he here because he has nowhere else to crash?

"Nothing. I would tell him… that you were asleep or in the shower." Mark toys with the tag on a teabag. The paper is limp, worn and faded near to white. Mark's tea probably tastes like barely tainted water. "He wanted to see you," Mark adds softly.

The look I give him, my sudden response, must be an emotional sucker punch because Mark looks away again and says, "He said you could come up to visit. He invited me, too, but he cared more about you. Didn't need to say it." I'm angry. Collins is—was—is the only person to care about me. Mark may have severed that one tie. "I told him you hadn't left the house," Mark says.

That I would rather stay with Mark—Mark!—than see him!

I return to my guitar. It's my turn to look away.

_Collins_

My love of Mark and Roger has become fact. I love them—so Roger's a baby, so Mark is an asshole, so what? They're good people and I love them. I no longer think of it, though. I knew it, they knew it, but weeks ago I stopped missing them. What was the point? Mark had barely anything to say to me, Roger less. We loved each other but had nothing to say anymore.

And there's Angel, there's love. Roger's his usual solemn self, we hug, I'm gone, he sulks… The next thing I know he's on the fire escape, screaming down about how there's no soul, and Angel's friend is on the street with us, crying.

Companionship is wonderful, but allegiances only ever end up tangled.

"Roger, what was that?"

Mark is with Angel and Mimi. I'm in the loft for the first time in months. "Rog? Hey—"

Roger sits by the window, holding a mug between his hands. He looks like he's been crying, but he hasn't. "What?" he asks. "What do you want me to do, Collins, be a good little boy and kiss some strung out hooker just because she breaks into our apartment!?" Roger snaps.

"Hey." Just like that, he shuts up. That's my doing. One sharp syllable from anyone in a position of authority (like a teacher, for instance) shuts up anyone. "You want to tell me what that's about?" Clearly everything Mark and Roger _didn't_ tell me isn't quite resolved.

"She broke in!" Roger insists. His voice cracks.

I go over and sit beside him. "Okay, Roger. But that is not my fault."

"She brought drugs into our apartment," he says.

I shrug. "Roger, _I_ bring drugs into our apartment. I left drugs in the apartment. So what?"

Roger shakes his head. I never should've left. "Collins…" Roger begins, then he opens his mouth like he might say something. He nearly tells me everything before being cut off by a loud beeping sound all too familiar to me—and, I see, to him, too. Roger doesn't look at me as he palms the pills and dryswallows.

Angel stays with Mimi that night. I stay with Roger. The analogy will amuse me later in a way too utterly terrifying to admit to anyone: that Roger is my baggage and Mimi is Angel's and, as Mimi would say, I've found baggage that goes with mine. The truly terrifying bit is the realization that Angel and I are the most traditional, heterosexual couple in our group and Roger and Mimi are our stepkids.

Nightmares like these are the reason I smoke so much weed.

Roger and I sit up for a while. He fills me in on the last few months and all I can think is, _why isn't he dead?_ Roger is eighteen years old. He's lived in more cities than I have, lived out of his mother's car, lost his father, lost his home, he's been a junkie, been through withdrawal, he's been raped and for all practical purposes murdered again and again and again. It should be this poor kid's time to finally die.

"But I'll do better," Roger begs, pleads, promises. "I will. I want to."

"Yeah… I know you will, Roger." I don't have it left in me to disapprove. Roger should fall asleep and not wake up until he's well rested, and likely two years older, and he can handle everything that's been placed in front of him. "Do you want me to stay with you tonight?"

Roger opens his mouth, his eyes alight, and he teeters on the brink of agreeing. I see the dilemma and cut him off—because I want to stay with Roger. I need this. I need to be doing something, for a moment not feeling like I left and let everything fall apart. Quickly, I amend, "I don't really have anywhere else to crash, so if it's cool…"

"It's cool," Roger answers, trying not to sound too eager.

Tomorrow I will judge his actions. Tomorrow I'll return to my omnipotence, my omniscience.

_To be continued!_

Author's Note: See, you thought I was dead, but I surprised ya! Here's the story... this will be my last "Film and Junk" story, as Film has dumped Junk. Nevermind the Junk was the better writer, the more responsible, the more giving in the friendship... but I digress. I'll finish this one hopefully within the next couple of months and that's it. The rest of my stories are under the name LondonBelow.

Author's Note 2: I don't know yet how I'll end the story, so if there's anything anyone is hoping for let me know. I'm not promising it'll be included but it's worth a shot.


	33. The trouble in the first place

Disclaimer: It's Mr. Larson's. I'm just playing.

_Collins_

I tell Angel it's an emergency. "Sorry," I say, though there had been no plans. Things happen. Angel and I meld into each other's lives, and without plans there is no canceling, no being stood up. I have no home. I'm not homeless but there's no cat or dog, no reason to go home when I can be with Angel. And Angel wants me there as much as I want to be there because our lives are the same patterns of nothing, the nothing that adds up to everything. We are zeroes, always my favorite number, the absence of number, the number added together that changes nothing, nothing to take away.

So I stay with Roger. We don't sleep much. At first I think he's wearing makeshift pajamas, a t-shirt and boxers too ratty to wear in public. And he talks. Roger starts talking and he doesn't stop. He talks too much, builds up inertia, he cries and nearly vomits. He stops using periods and uses conjunctions instead. Mostly "and". He goes over every detail, things I don't need to know or want to.

Roger starts shaking. It becomes rocking and I grab his shoulders before he can hurt himself. I lie. It's only after he smacks his head on the metal bedpost that I realize this room is a mental ward. Roger is a person you hold tight so he doesn't slip away or fall apart. There are so many tiny pieces to lose.

"Don't, Roger." Don't what? Don't kill yourself. Don't hurt yourself. He's nowhere near strong enough to fight me, just slumps. He's like a cat. He lies across my lap and I stroke his hair. This is when I notice that Roger's shirt isn't just ratty, it's threadbare. I can all but see his heart beating. And looking around I see that Roger's clothing, piled in the corner, is nothing but three button-down shirts and a pair of jeans. His guitar is here. Nothing more.

He isn't lying.

Finally around dawn Roger rubs his eyes and says, "I just don't know what to do anymore. There is nothing I want from life and nothing I have left to give."

There are many routes I can take. I can tell him sincerely that he has much to offer and that life will get better. I can smack his head and tell him not to talk like that, then laugh, and I know he'll laugh too. I can hug him. I can blame Mark for that bad attitude. But I look at Roger and see the purple rings around his eyes and the drooping corners of his mouth.

"Come on, Roger. Get some sleep, all right?"

He laughs and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. "'Cause things'll look so much better in the morning?" he asks.

I roll my eyes. "No, 'cause I'm tired, assbrain."

We share the bed, and it hardly seems platonic. I wake terrified each time he shifts, but Roger never pulls away.

_to be continued_

review? Pretty please?


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